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Ht LIBRARIES 


Girt OF 


The Reverend D. Michael Jordan 
e'ss., "72 





THIRSTING 
FOR THE SPRINGS 





THIRSTING 
FOR THE SPRINGS 


TWENTY-SIX WEEKNIGHT MEDITATIONS 


BY 


J. H. JOWETT, D.D. 


Pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York 
Author of ‘‘ Brooks by the Traveller’s Way,’’ etc. 


THE CHRISTIAN HERALD 
BIBLE HOUSE: NEW YORK 





FOREWORD 


THe addresses in this volume were all 
originally published in the Examiner news- 
paper, and it was not intended by Mr 
Jowett that they should ever take more 
permanent form. They were found, how- 
ever, to be so helpful and stimulating by 
a wide circle of readers, and so many re- 
quests for their republication were received, 
that it has been resolved te issue them 
in the present volume, with the hope that 
they may appeal for good to a still larger 
public. As they retain the form of spoken 
rather than written addresses, it is only 
due to the author that this much should 
be stated. 
W. B. Sera 
(Editor of the “ Examiner”). 





CONTENTS 


Why Tell It? . ° : 
Thirsting for the Springs . 
The Degeneracy of a Soul 
Staying the Plague! 

The Passing of the Burden 
Altars and Altar Fires 
How to Know God Better 


The Earthly and the Heavenly . 


soln Christ Jesus”? . . 
Feaph towdeach : 
Loving the Enemy . ° 
My Shield and My Glory . 
From Bondage to Freedom 
Perilous Compromise 


To Know Jesus ! : " 
What I Would if I Could 
Awe and Trust ‘ < 


The Living Water . : 


118 


129 
137 
147 
155 
165 


8 Thirsting for the Springs 


The Palsied Soul . 

The Business Instinct in Religion 
The Ministry of Praise . 

A Christian Walk . . . 
A Song in the Night . ‘ 
The Roots of the Blessed Life 
The Things of Others . ° 
A Testimony Meeting . ° 


THIRSTING FOR 
THE SPRINGS 


WHY TELL IT? 


Text: “ He made as though He would go further.” — 
Luke 24: 28. 


“* He made as though He would go further.” 
Is there any ministry concealed in this 
apparently trifling incident? The Master 
knew whenever He turned aside into the 
disciples’ house He would receive most 
hearty welcome and entertainment. ‘ He 
knew what was in man,” and He therefore 
discerned the grace of hospitality hidden 
in their hearts. He knew that they were 
hospitably disposed. Why, then, did He 
make “‘ as though He would go further ? ” 
He wished to elicit a voluntary expres- 
sion of their hospitality. They were not 
wanting in goodness; it only needed to 
be exercised. The hospitable disposition 
was not absent; it only required to be 
evoked. And so “He made as though 
, -9 


10 Thirsting for the Springs 


He would go further.” The hidden good- 
ness then sought expression. Feeling con- 
fessed itself in appropriate speech. The 
sentiment of hospitality found voice, “ But 
they constrained Him, saying, Abide with 
us: because it is toward evening, and 
the day is now far spent.” 

““He made as though He would go 
further.” The loving device was practised 
not for His own sake, but for the sake 
of the two disciples. “He came not to 
be ministered unto, but to minister.” It 
was not that He might obtain a night’s 
lodging, but that they might obtain a 
larger heart. Goodness expressed is good- 
ness confirmed. Hospitality uttered is hospi- 
tality enriched. Feelings that never find 
utterance may die from slow suffocation. 
To confess a sentiment is to strengthen 
it. To hide a sentiment may be to lose 
it. And so the purpose of the Master 
was to strengthen the better nature of 
His companions by eliciting its expression. 
These men were stronger and wealthier 
when their hospitality had uttered itself 


Why Tell It? 11 


at the gracious constrain of the Lord. And 
so, through this apparently meaningless 
incident we pass into a spacious principle. 
And the principle is this. If you wish 
to strengthen a feeling, express it; if you 
wish to destroy it, deprive it of a tongue. 
In the domain of gracious feeling expres- 
sion is confirmation. The principle receives 
many applications from the Word of God, 
and it is to one or two of these applications 
that we will now direct our attention. 

(1) The Sentiment of Gratitude.—Every- 
body is familiar with the repeated and 
urgent counsels of the Old Book calling 
us to the expressions of thanksgiving. 
“O give thanks unto the Lord.” “O 
come let us sing unto the Lord.” “ Let 
us come before His presence with thanks- 
giving.” What occasion is there for this 
urgent and impetuous counsel? Is it not 
enough that we should feel grateful ? 
Is not the very sentiment of gratitude 
creative of a delicious odour which is 
acceptable unto God? Why should I 
seek to give the feeling expression? Why 


12 Thirsting for the Springs 


should I utter my thanks? Why should 
I sing? Questions like these imply a 
misinterpretation of the nature of feeling. 
Gratitude unexpressed, inevitably cools 
into apathy. To express our thanks is 
to augment our thankfulness. Of course 
I am not thinking of mere conventionalisms, 
of the hollow courtesies or the flippant 
graces which form the tinsel of ceremonial 
functions. I am speaking of the thanks- 
givings which find expression in sincere 
and serious speech. Now, let us see what 
such expression implies. In the first place, 
it necessitates the exercise of thought. 
Therefore, to express one’s gratitude requires 
that a man be thoughtful. When I am 
about to express myself seriously con- 
cerning anything, the thing itself is looked 
at in quiet and fruitful deliberation. If 
I am about to speak to God concerning 
His bountiful gifts, which He has showered 
upon me, I shall be obliged to gaze thought- 
fully at the gifts in long and helpful con- 
templation. That is why the Psalms which 
most abound in thanksgiving are most 


Why Tell It? 13 


alive and discerning as to the multitude 
of the mercies in which our life abounds. 
**When I seek to count them!” He is 
contemplating the marvellous succession 
of the Divine mercies. ‘“‘ Thy mercies are 
in the heavens, and Thy faithfulness reaches 
even unto the clouds.” That is ever the 
influence of thought upon feeling. It 
vivifies it. If thought is alive, and bright, 
and definite, feeling will be quickened 
into intensity. If thought is dull and 
languid, feeling will assuredly be torpid. 


‘© When all Thy mercies, O my God, 
My rising soul surveys, 
Transported with the view, I’m lost 
In wonder, love, and praise.” 


I am therefore not surprised when I read 
the word of the Psalmist: “It is a good 
thing to give thanks!” “It is good to 
sing praises!” “A good thing!” It is 
not merely pleasant and welcome. It is 
healthy and nourishing. The ungrateful 
man may chill and pain his benefactor ; 
but that is only a secondary evil. The 


14 Thirsting for the Springs 


greater evil is that he maims himself. 
The ungrateful becomes evermore the 
dwarfed. 

(2) The matter of personal faith in Christ. 
—Here again we move under the dominion 
of the same principle. We are strengthened 
by confession. If we only knew it, it is 
more difficult to be a secret disciple than 
an openly avowed follower of the Lord. 
Secrecy deprives us of the stimulus of 
publicity. It robs us of the supports 
that belong to a public confession. And 
so the Bible has a great deal to say concern- 
ing the giving of expression to our personal 
faith in Christ. “Everyone who shall 
confess Me before men, him shall the Son 
of Man also confess before the angels of 
God.” That is not a veiled threat. It 
is a statement of cause and effect. The 
one makes me fitted in character for the 
other. It is the fitness of the officer for 
the office. “If thou shalt confess with 
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe 
in thy heart that God raised Him from 
the dead, thou shalt be saved.” ‘“ For 


Why Tell It? 15 


with the mouth confession is made unto 
salvation.” ‘*‘ Whosoever shall confess that 
Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth 
in him and he in God.” “They that 
believed came and confessed.” There 
must surely be something of gracious 
influence in this experience, or it would 
never be counselled with such strenuous 
urgency. All these quotations only re- 
emphasise the principle that inner sanctities 
are strengthened and enriched by open 
confession. A man’s faith in God is 
fortified by the experience of confession. 
Just think of it for a moment. It is 
always a sound rule in life to regard 
one’s shrinkings with intense suspicion. 
Our shrinkings are very frequently the 
index to urgent duties. I do not say 
that they are always so. A man’s shrink- 
ings may be the instinctive recoil of a 
refined and sanctified spirit. But a man’s 
shrinkings may be, and very frequently 
are, the recoils of timidity and cowardice. 
I must, therefore, look closely at my duties, 
lest perchance they hide my duties. Now 


16 Thirsting for the Springs 


men shrink from the public confession 
of Christ. Does the shrinking indicate 
a duty? Men will do anything, and will 
prefer anything, rather than make a public 
confession of their belief in the rights and 
kingship of Christ. And yet such a con- 
fession would often act with great spiritual 
energy in the counsels of the world. It 
would stop many an unfair conversation. 
It would dry up the applause from many 
a filthy jest, and expose the jester to the 
chilling reproof of a silent reception. It 
would elevate many an enterprise whose 
tendency was towards the dust. These 
would be some of the influences upon 
others; but what would be the influence 
upon self? It is difficult behaviour. Yes, 
and, therefore, presumably the right. It 
is usually safe to give the preference to 
the difficult path. It is the “narrow 
way” that leads to the kingdom. It 
is in the way of difficulty that faith finds 
its most nutritious food. Public confession 
is a kind of public pledge, a public conse- 
cration of life; and consecration always 


Why Tell It? 17 


means amplification. By consecration my 
life is prepared and enlarged for the recep- 
tion of the wondrous ministries of the 
Holy Ghost. “If thou shalt confess with 
thy mouth the Lord Jesus . . . thou 
shalt be saved.” ‘The great exercise will 
stir up and strengthen the forces of salva- 
tion within thee, and thou shalt assuredly 
be led to the perfected life. 

(3) The Declaration of Christian experrence. 
—I have had certain experiences in my 
fellowship with God. He has graciously 
given me unveilings of truth. New lights 
have broken upon my eyes from old lamps. 
I have come upon new wells of consolations. 
What shall I do with them? If I want 
to enrich them I must make them known. 
Our experiences become the more precious 
when we share them with our fellows. 
It is the witness who is first blessed in 
witness-bearing. Here, again, confession 
is amplification. ““Come and hear, all 
ye that fear the Lord, and I will tell you 
what He has done for my soul.” “TI 
have not hid Thy righteousness within 


B 


18 Thirsting for the Springs 


my heart; I have declared Thy faithfulness 
and Thy salvation.” “I have not con- 
cealed Thy loving-kindness and Thy truth 
from the great congregation.” “I have 
not hid . . . I have declared!” “T 
have not concealed . . . I have told!” 
It is this “ declaring ” and this “ telling ” 
which I am afraid is so lacking in our modern 
religious life. We have little of the testi- 
mony meeting. We have little of the 
“speaking to one another” of the Lord’s 
dealings in personal life. I am persuaded 
that we are great losers by the abstinence. 
Who can tell what it might mean to others 
if we opened out to them a little of our 
secret intercourse with God? To quietly 
tell some man how the Lord found and 
redeemed you! To quietly tell some 
heart-broken mother how, after many tears 
and many prayers, your own lad was 
reclaimed! To quietly testify what the 
Lord did for you in the time of your sorrow, 
and how you saw a bright angel in the dark 
grave! To quietly tell how the Lord 
lifted you out of the miry clay and set 


Why Tell It? 19 


your feet upon a rock! What might be 
the influence of all this upon the hearer, 
who canmeasure? As to the influence upon 
the witness himself, I am persuaded that 
his experiences would be enriched even 
while he witnessed. The meal in the 
barrel would be multiplied even while he 
distributed it. The witness himself would 
have to say: “The half hath not been 
told!” 





THIRSTING FOR THE SPRINGS 


Text: “ Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shalt 
give him, shall never thirst.”—John 4: 14. 


Tuts is a suitable place at which to take 
our stand if we wish to raise the question, 
who is this Jesus, man or God? Is He 
a particularly beautiful offshoot of the 
Jewish race, rudely cut off when He was 
blossoming into a maturity of unexampled 
loveliness, or is He the great Eternal, 
enshrined in a vesture of time? This 
is a fitting place for such question to be 
‘asked. What is the claim? “I am life’s 
water, I am life’s bread.” Does He mean 
just what He says? Does He use figures 
and metaphors loosely, or do they represent 
with scrupulous accuracy the inmost truth 
of things? Bread! Water! I cannot 
do without them. Then the Master will 
not permit himself to be regarded as the 
superfluity at life’s meals. He is not an 


indifferent addition to life, but an elemental 
21 


22 Thirsting for the Springs 


and fundamental necessity. He claims to 
be something that we cannot do without. 
“Without Him we cannot live.” There 
will be nothing worthy to be called by 
the large and sovereign term of “ Life.” 
We shall be starvelings, weaklings, pinched 
and pining, full of hungers and thirsts, 
creeping along upon the confines of moral 
and spiritual death. 

Such is one aspect of this stupendous 
claim. Now look at it from a slightly 
different angle. This man Jesus asserts 
that if He be regarded as bread and water, 
if He be taken and used as the common 
food of the common day, He will annihilate 
all the hungers and thirsts of the soul, 
which are now the sources of so much 
disquietude and pain. “He that cometh 
to Me shall never hunger, and he that 
believeth on Me shall never thirst.” Let 
us pause, that we may attempt to grasp 
the significance of this mighty claim. Let 
us call the roll of a few of the hungers and 
thirsts which this man claims to have the 
power to appease. 


Thirsting for the Springs 23 


Here is a thirst of the soul. It is the 
thirst for assurance. It is born of feverish- 
ness. ‘There is a feverishness of the spirit, 
as well as of the flesh. We are familiar 
with the symptoms of the feverish body 
—the accelerated pulse, the throbbing 
head, the tossing restlessness, and all these 
have their analogies in their feverish soul. 
There are souls that are “ heated hot with 
burning fears.” Fears are in their minds 
and hearts like burning firebrands, and 
they eat and inflame the entire life. What 
kind of fears are these? The Master 
has named them, ‘“ Anxieties about to- 
morrow’; and when one of these blazing 
brands gets into the soul, it creates a 
feverishness which drys the life with a 
consuming thirst. Feverishness in the soul 
is a condition jist, the opposite to what 
the Scriptures describe as a “ cool spirit.” 
Feverishness in the soul is a condition of 
panic, a state of dread, a dry, hot unrest, 
a thirst for assurance. “‘ He that believeth 
on Me shall never thirst.” He creates a 
cool spirit. He puts out the firebrand of 


Rh Tharsting for the Springs 


fear. He annihilates dread. He takes the 
threat out of the morrow. He gives assur- 
ance. “If any man thirst let him come 
unto Me and drink.” 

Here is another thirst. It is the “ lust 
of bliss.” I can use no milder term, for a 
milder term would leave the greater thing 
unsaid. It is not merely that we thirst 
for bliss, there are multitudes of souls 
which lust for it. There are men and 
women in every city who do not care what 
they ignore, or what they destroy, so long 
as they can obtain a mouthful of bliss! 
I am sometimes tempted to believe that 
it is one of the most perilous signs of 
the times. We have to make everything 
pleasant to entice the palates of men. We 
are in danger of changing the strait and 
narrow way into a way of light and pleasing 
entertainment, and of smothering the hard, 
grim, bloody Cross under an avalanche of 
flowers. I am not surprised at the thirst ; 
is it the Nemesis of wilfulness. If men 
deliberately turn themselves away from the 
river of water of life, they do not destroy 


Thirsting for the Springs 25 


their thirst, they only pervert it, and turn 
it into a lust for the puddles! That is it, 
with many of us it has become a lust for 
the puddles! ‘“ Whosoever drinketh of the 
water that I shall give him, shall never 
thirst.” The thirst for bliss shall be more 
than gratified by the gift of blessedness, 
and the lust for the puddles shall be 
quenched in the attainment of God’s 
pleasures, in an abiding by the river of 
water of life. 

Here is another thirst. Let us call it 
the thirst for the springs. Do what we like, 
waste what we please, pervert what we 
choose, there is always a reminder within 
us that points us toward God. ‘* Why art 
thou cast down, O my soul, and why art 
thou disquieted within me?” It may be 
only that ; a discontent, a little disquietude, 
just a tiny vacancy in the soul, which we 
cannot fill up with the things of time. It 
is the indestructible reminder to keep us 
in thought of God. ‘My soul, thou hast 
much goods laid up for many years, take 
thine ease.” Ease! Yes, if only I could 


26 Thirsting for the Springs 


get rid of that vague and pervading yearn- 
ing which steals into the finest of earth’s 
feasts, and turns all its revelry into a pain- 
ful insufficiency. It is the indestructible 
remnant; say rather, it is the God-created 
thirst for the springs. 

God has made the grass very juicy for 
the kine, but the juices of the grass do not 
make the kine independent of the water 
brooks. Even amid the luscious pastures 
they thirst for the still waters, and they 
make their way to the brink, and, standing 
knee-deep, bathe and refresh themselves in 
the gracious stream. And God has made 
some things very juicy for His children, 
in order that the juiciness itself might 
minister to our delight in growth. The 
beauty of nature; the entrancing ministry 
of music—how very juicy God has made 
them—but even in these luxurious pastures 
the soul thirsts for the springs. “As the 
hart panteth after the water brooks, so 
panteth my soul after Thee, O God.” You 
may linger in the juicy grass, but you 
won’t destroy the thirst. The thirst for 


Thirsting for the Springs 27 


the springs will persist and remain, a 
vague yearning, a painful disquietude, 
which will haunt you even to the end. 
Now let us hear the Lord: “He that 
believeth on Me” hath found the springs. 
“* Whosoever drinketh of the water that I 
shall give him, shall never thirst.” 

Here is another thirst. What shall we 
call it? It is the thirst of the exile, the 
thirst of the prodigal, the longing for 
home. We have a word, most wealthy 
in its suggestiveness, which offers itself 
here as an all-sufficient term. We call it 
home-sickness. Have you ever looked into 
it? Home-sickness! The sickness of the 
exile, a fainting because of absence from 
the old hearth, a yearning to see the old 
face and to hear once again the sweet 
familiar voice, a thirsting for home! And 
how much more poignant and painful is 
the thirst when the absence is born of 
rebelliousness and sin! God has such 
self-exiled ones. They roam through the 
land to-day in unnumbered crowds, and 
they are home-sick, thirsting for the satis- 


28 Thirsting for the Springs 


factions which are to be found only in 
their father’s house. They have wasted 
their substance in riotous living. They 
have spent all. They are in want. They 
are burdened with a disquieting thirst. 
Christ claims to be able to appease that 
thirst. To be with Him is to be at home 
again, and to be at rest. “Come unto 
Me, and I will give you rest,” home-rest ; 
the great sick longing shall be changed into 
a sweet content, and the feverish thirst 
shall be quenched in the glorious fellow- 
ship of God. 

There is one other thirst I would like to 
name. Let us call it the thirst for com- 
pleteness, for holiness, for health. I thirst 
to make this life of mine, which is so large 
in promise, and so varied in faculty, as 
capacious and as wealthy as from its own 
suggestiveness I think it might be. This 
thirst for completeness finds its satisfac- 
tion in Christ. The missing thing, for 
which I pant, I shall find in Him. “The 
blind receive their sight, and the lame 
walk; the lepers are cleansed, the deaf 


Thirsting for the Springs 29 


hear, and the dead are raised up.” Ih 
Christ is the pledge of our perfectness, 
and the thirst for holiness is only consum- 
mated in Him. 

I would therefore lead you to the foun- 
tain. Every other river has its seasons of 
drought. Every other spring runs dry. 
Other resources will fail us. They will 
not redeem their promise. They will 
aggravate the very thirst they profess 
to relieve. Let us take our thirst to the 
Eternal spring, and find rest and content- 
ment and health in there abiding. 


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THE DEGENERACY OF A SOUL 
Text: Psalm 12. 


“ Hetp, Lord!” ‘This is the wailing sup- 
plication of a soul oppressed with the 
degeneracy of society. Disease has broken 
out in the body corporate. The common- 
wealth is rotting. Human fellowships are 
falling to pieces. Wickedness is trium- 
phant, and the smothering contagion is 
imperilling the peace and vitality of the 
saints. “Help, Lord!” It is a cry for 
security amid an evil epidemic. It is an 
appeal for divine reinforcement amid pre- 
valent collapse. It is the prayer of the 
individual, threatened by the engulfing 
floods of moral and spiritual degeneracy. 
This Psalm marks off the steps of social 
degradation. The steps of transition are 
clearly indicated. We can see the pro- 
gressive descents from the worship of God 
to the exaltation of vileness. Sense after 


sense is benumbed; nerve after nerve is 
31 


32 Thirsting for the Springs 


atrophied ; perception after perception is 
impaired ; until the entire body of human 
relationships, which was intended by God 
to be the home of all manner of refined 
and delicate sympathies, becomes a mass 
of hard and callous selfishness, in which all 
the ties of rarer communion are destroyed. 
I do not propose to regard these stages 
of decline in their relationship to society, 
but in their relationship to the individual. 
Society only reflects the individual man. 
What we find in the one, we may translate 
into the other. Let us then regard the 
passage as a vivid description of the de- 
generacy of a soul. At the one extreme 
we have the worship of God; at the other 
extreme we have the exaltation of wicked- 
ness. What is the first stage in this appalling 
decline ? -Where does the decay begin ? 
The decay of the sense of reverence. “The 
godly man ceaseth.” The beginning of 
degeneracy is to lose touch with God. We 
lose our touch of God when we cease to 
“feel after Him.” It is the effort to feel, 
that preserves the sensitive touch. The 


The Degeneracy of a Soul 33 


intense effort to discern a thing through 
the finger tips gives the blind almost a 
new sense, and the intense striving to feel 
God, endows the soul with the powers of 
fine apprehension. It is here that so 
many of us fail in the attainment of a 
lofty spirituality. We only exercise our- 
selves in “ feeling,” in the crisis and emerg- 
encies of life, and as these are only of rare 
occurrence, our exercisings are infrequent. 
Men who are to become spiritual experts 
in apprehending God, must feel after Him 
through the commonplaces of the ordinary 
day. They must feel after Him in their 
daily bread, in the humble duty, in lowly 
affection, in the little ministries of the 
obscure way. They must feel after Him 
in prayer, in aspiration, in meditation. 
They must “ practise the presence of God,” 
that in the persistent groping after Him, 
they may attain unto a sensitiveness of 
touch that perceives Him everywhere. If 
we give up the practice, if we only feel after 
Him in the great contingency, in the hour 


of sorrow, in the shadow of bereavement, 
©] 


34 Thirsting for the Springs 


in the heavy disappointment, and if we are 
indolent and sluggish in the long level road 
of the commonplace, we shall lose our 
touch of God, and shall inevitably become 
ungodly. 

The decay of the sense of honour. “ Faith- 
fulness faileth from among the children 
of men.” “Faithfulness faileth”; the 
dependableness of character is impaired. 
When reverence is benumbed, trustfulness 
is broken. When men lose the sense of the 
august, they lose the sense of the honour- 
able. They do not fulfil their promise. 
They are no longer what Martin Luther 
called “the Amen folk”; they do not 
support their speech by the strong steady 
buttress of their life. They become insincere. 
And note how the insincerity blossoms where 
all character reveals itself, upon the lips. 
“They speak vanity everyone with his 
neighbour.” The conversation is full of 
emptinesses, trivialities, nothings. When 
the eternal goes out of life, speech is not 
preserved in its greatness. The little life 
spends and exhausts itself in little topics. 


The Degeneracy of a Soul 35 


‘With flattering lip and with a double 
heart do they speak.” Not only is the 
subject matter of speech belittled, but the 
speech itself is perverted, and rendered in- 
sincere. With the loss of reverence men 
lose the sense of the sacredness of words. 
Flattery is usually associated with its still 
more diseased companion, duplicity. It 
was a quaint saying of an old Puritan that 
“Flattery is the sign of the Inn of which 
Duplicity is the host.” The flatterer speaks 
with a double heart. He has one heart 
for your face, and another for behind your 
back. One for the Church, and another 
for the market. His nerve of honour is no 
longer finely sensitive, and is either dying 
or dead. 

The decay of the sense of responsibility. 
“Our lips are our own, who is lord over 
us?” The decay of reverence leads to the 
perversion of honour; the perversion of 
honour destroys the sense of responsi- 
bility. Men become self-centred, and there- 
fore blinded. They see their own desires, 
but they do not recognise their brother’s 


36 Thirsting for the Springs 


rights. Their own appetites bulk large, 
but they have no vision of their brother’s 
needs. They see their possessions ; they do 
not recognise the responsibility of posses- 
sions. “Our lips are our own, who is 
lord over us?” How much more beautiful 
it were to say, “ My lips are my own, but 
for the service of my brother! What can 
I say to help him? What message can 
I take to comfort him? What song can 
I sing to cheer him? My hands are my 
own, but for the service of my brother! 
How can I use them to enrich him? What 
letter can I write to encourage him? What 
gift can I take to inspire him? My feet 
are my own, but for the use of my brother ! 
What errand can I run to serve him? 
What journey can I take to save him?” 
Such is the responsible use of possessions. 
When reverence is alert, and honour is 
active, my brother stands revealed in the 
clearest light, and the sense of responsibility 
is creative of manifold ministries for his 
good. 

The decay of the sense of humantty. 


The Degeneracy of a Soul 37 


“The spoiling of the poor, the sighing of 
the needy.” Where irresponsibility reigns, 
cruelty abounds. When men lose the sense 
of fellowship with their brethren, they 
tramp through life regardless of the cries 
of those whom they may crush beneath 
their heel. The birth of cruelty syn- 
chronises with the death of reverence. 
Cruelty will never lurk where reverence 
dwells. ‘The saints are the very homes of 
kindliness, therefore am I comforted with 
the words, “The saints shall judge the 
earth.” There will be no harshness and 
no severity in that judgment. Masters 
are never cruel where they revere their 
servants. Husbands can never be unkind 
when there is reverence for the wife. But 
when reverence is gone, and honour is 
impaired, and responsibility is dead, the 
sense of humanity withers away and men 
become as hard as flint. 

The decay of the sense of right. “ Vile- 
ness is exalted.” This is the last stage in 
the appalling degradation. Evil at length 


becomes man’s God. He enthrones it, 


38 Thirsting for the Springs 


pays homage to it, finds all his delight in it. 
He no longer knows it to be evil. He has 
lost his moral discernment. The talent 
has been taken away. He calls good evil 
and evil good. He calls the sweet bitter 
and the bitter sweet. He wallows in 
wickedness and loves it, and the kingdom 
of sin has become the realm of his delights. 
“* My soul, come out thou into his secret!” 
Such then is the darkening path of de- 
generacy. A soul loses its reverence 
for God, and at last pays willing homage 
to the devil. From irreverence and through 
unfaithfulness and irresponsibleness and 
inhumanity, the soul descends to the 
absolute worship of vice. 

How can we be saved from this perilous 
decline? First of all let this be said: 
The wish to be saved is the beginning of 
salvation. ‘“ Exercise thyself unto godli- 
ness.” Exercise thyself in feeling, and thou 
shalt become an expert in touching. Every- 
where and at all times be reaching out for 
God. Feel for Him in thy pleasures, in thy 
pains, in thy failures, in thy conquests, in 


The Degeneracy of a Soul 39 


thy noontides, and in thy midnights. Pray 
for Him everywhere; “ pray without ceas- 
ing,” and thy little life shall be filled with 
the presence of the divine, girding it with 
power, and making it fragrant with the 
delightful perfumes of grace. How can I 
be assured of this? “We have God’s 
own promise, and that cannot fail.” He 
will “ keep ” us; He will hedge us about in 
strong defence. He will “ preserve” us; 
He will give us sustenance, even the very 
bread of life. “‘ Hath He not promised, 
and shall He not doit?” The good Lord 
is dependable. He is better than His word, 
and “ the words of the Lord are pure words, 
as silver tried in a furnace on the earth, 
purified seven times.” 





STAYING THE PLAGUE! 


Text: “ Neither shall any plague come nigh thy 
dwelling.” —Psalm 91: 10. 


WE move amid moral pestilences. Plague- 
stricken people are all around us. We 
are daily in contact with men and women 
who are afflicted with moral and spiritual 
diseases. The diseases are highly con- 
tagious. How are we to escape them? 
“Evil communications corrupt.” Is that 
true always ? “He went to be guest.” Was 
He corrupted? Was He smitten? Did 
the evil contagion find lodgment in Him ? 
Evil communications do not always corrupt. 
Contagion demands prepared conditions. 
If the conditions are absent, the contagion 
is impotent. “The prince of this world 
cometh, and hath nothing in Me.” There 
were no appropriate conditions. There was 
no congenial soil. The. devil could find 
no footing. The evil microbe could dis- 
cover no sustenance. The secret of healthy 
a 


42 Thirsting for the Springs 


living consists in the exercise of care lest 
we lapse or degenerate into conditions 
which will be congenial to the germs of 
moral and spiritual disease. 

We have now had twenty-five years 
of bacteriological investigation. Profound 
research has been devoted to the infancy 
and growth of disease. The preparatory 
conditions in which the microbes find their 
sustenance have been laboriously studied, 
and some fruitful conclusions have been 
established. Now the flesh is more than 
a vesture. It is a literature. It is an 
assembly of parabolic hints. It offers 
suggestions as to the creation of a well- 
ordered soul. Here, then, are two or three 
of the prepared conditions which offer a 
foothold to encroaching disease. 


I. PHYSICAL EXHAUSTION. 

The natural forces are reduced. The 
energy is spent. The army is recalled from 
the walls. The gates are left undefended, 
and the enemy has an easy access. Our 
physical defences are constituted out of 


Staying the Plague! 43 


the natural resistance of the body. Im- 
poverish these, and our security is gone. 
Let me change the analogy. Inthe physical 
life our income must be a little above our 
expenditure. Physical exhaustion means 
that the emphasis has been changed. We 
have got an inlet with a one-inch bore, and 
we have got an outlet of one and a half. 
How is exhaustion to be interpreted ? 
Some sources of income have ceased. Some 
correspondence has been severed. Perhaps 
the correspondence has been broken with 
the restoring realm of rest. We have gone 
-on grinding and grinding until the energy has 
been spent. Then comes along the microbe 
and settles itself in the congenial conditions 
of weakness, and extends the insidious 
distribution of some most crippling disease. 

How is it with the soul? Its defences 
are its resistances. If the soul is strong 
and powerful and energetic, the microbe 
of evil will gain no footing. But the soul 
can become faint, its defences may be 
straitened, and the stronghold may be 
easily taken at the first besiegement of the 


44 Thirsting for the Springs 


evil one. How does the soul become 
exhausted? By the breaking of the corre- 
spondence with the land of rest. “ Why 
art thou cast down, Omysoul?” “ Return 
unto thy rest.” We are made to hold 
communion with the restoring centres of 
rest. By prayerfulness and by spiritual 
meditation the communion is kept estab- 
lished. But, if the communion be broken, 
the soul sinks into spiritual weakness and 
exhaustion, and the microbe of a tempta- 
tion or suggestion, finding us defenceless, 
fattens on our weakness, and holds us 
in the bondage of a foul and appalling 
disease. Men easily capitulate to the devil 
when by prayerlessness they have reduced 
themselves to spiritual exhaustion. 


II. BAD FOOD. 

Diet is not altogether an indifferent 
matter in reference to the advances of 
disease. Some foods are the friends of 
our foes. They encourage the plague. 
They prepare its way. They arrange con- 
genial conditions. It is not otherwise with 


Staying the Plague! 45 


the spirit. Diet is not a matter of indiffer- 
ence. What kind of food do we give the 
mind? Is it possible we may be pre- 
disposing the mind to easy surrender to 
moral disease? How about our read- 
ing? Is the food good, or is it unsound 
meat? Can we honestly expect our minds 
to be healthy with the kind of food we 
give them? ‘“‘ God gave them bread from 
heaven to eat.” “Iam the Bread.” The 
Master’s bread is not all to be found within 
the province of one book. He has given 
His bread to His disciples, and they dis- 
tribute it to the multitudes. He has given 
His bread to poets, to singers, to artists. 
My counsel is this: Pick your bread; do 
not eat whatever comes. Be even more 
careful in dieting the spirit than in feeding 
the body. “This is the bread of which if 
a mean eat he shall not die.” 


Ill. UNDISCIPLINED EMOTION. 

The investigations of the last twenty 
years have revealed this as one of the 
predisposing conditions of physical disease. 


/ 


46 Thirsting for the Springs 


Excessive grief and worry have exhausted 
the body and thrown its gates open to the 
invading germs. Little griefs can despoil 
the body. It is the dropping tap which 
empties the cistern. Little by little men 
get run down, and make themselves easy 
victims to any plague that may be prowling 
about. How is it with the soul? Is not 
undisciplined emotion one of the predis- 
posing conditions of spiritual collapse? 
Unregulated emotion impoverishes the 
spiritual defences. It becomes our enemy 
rather than our friend. The devil likes 
to get our emotions well stirred, and to 
make us pleased with our emotions, and 
then behind our satisfaction he carries on 
his nefarious work. It is one of the perils 
of great evangelical missions. Mere emo- 
tionalism weakens our defences, and leaves 
us more disposed to the devices of the devil. 
Emotionalism has often proved the fore- 
runner and helpmeet of the plague, and 
has provided conditions which have been 
converted into domains of widespread 
spiritual disease. 


Staying the Plague! an 


IV. UNCLEANNESS. 

Perhaps this is one of the greatest dis- 
coveries of the realm of surgery during the 
present generation. We have come to see, 

‘as never before, the absolute necessity of 
the most scrupulous cleanliness. Microbes 
love dirt. Our surgeons are, therefore, 
exactingly careful that all their operations 
are performed with sterilised instruments, 
and under the severest conditions of cleanli- 
ness. The smallest remnant of dirt gives 
an advantage to disease. How is it with 
the soul? There is need of a similar 
scrupulousness. Do we exercise the same 
scrupulousness? Do we not treat small 
scruples lightly ? Do we not label them as 
puritanical? Do we not compromise in the 
matter? Many of us become the victims 
of the plague because at first we harbour, 
not deliberate or intentional wrongs, but 
little biases towards the devil. We make 
little compromises in his favour. We retain 
a dirty little prejudice, or some mean little 
policy which we persuade ourselves cannot 
be called wrong, but only expedient, and 


48 Thirsting for the Springs 


these retained uncleannesses afford occasion 
and opportunity to the evil one, and 
through the entrance thus obtained he 
leads on his forces of darkness, the strong 
and black battalions of hell. If we are to 
defeat the enemy, we shall have to attend 
to the scruple. One defilement, deliber- 
ately treasured, may ensure the absolute 
triumph of the plague. “ Create in me a 
clean heart, O God.” 

Let me add one or two closing words. 
Here is a suggestive sentence from a text- 
book of science :—“ The most universal 
and active and economical agent of sanita- 
tion is the sun.” The worst enemy of the 
microbe is the sunlight. It is the room 
that gets but little sunshine which becomes 
fusty. And is all this not true in the 
regions of the soul? Our light is our 
defence. “The Lord God is a Sun”; 
and, therefore, “a shield.” Let us put 
on the “armour of light.” “Walk im 
the light.” It is the light that burns up 
the destructive invader. “Our God is a 
consuming fire.” 


THE PASSING OF THE BURDEN 


Text: “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He 
shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous 
to be moved.” —Psalm 55: 22. 


Tis is a stormy psalm, abounding in 
threat, indignation, fear, and pain. The 
tempest rages right up to the confines of 
my text. Here, in the text, there is a 
temporary lull in the violence of thought 
and feeling. The driven, terrified pilgrim 
is becoming possessed by the recovering 
light of assurance, and the trembling heart 
is quieted into momentary peace. In the 
earlier outbursts the Psalmist is meditating 
relief from his burden by the way of flight. 
“Oh, had I the wings of a dove, then 
would I fly away.” We have all known 
the inclination. We all know the critical 
moment when we are contemplating seek- 
ing relief by leaving our tasks. “I will 
just leave the whole thing. I will get away 
from it!” Such flight is usually fruitless. 
D 4s 


50 Thirsting for the Springs 


We carry our burden with us. On the 
further shore it sits upon us still. And yet 
there are some types of burden in which 
the refuge of flight will be found to be a 
rare and splendid defence. “ Flee youthful 
lusis.”” In these matters flight is the only 
method of salvation. There are some atmo- 
spheres in which evil desire inevitably 
becomes irritated and inflamed. Our only 
refuge is to get away from them. Flee 
from any oil that would feed the unclean 
desire. If you are inclined to be feverish, 
passionate, voluptuous, flee from the in- 
flammatory material on which the temper 
is fed. Get away from inflammatory 
books. Give up inflammatory companion- 
ships. Seek refuge by flight. “ Flee from 
idolatry.” Do not take part for a moment 
in the temple worship of an alien god. Do 
not sit in the temple of Mammon. Do not 
play with worldly maxims. Do not think 
there is security in partial worldliness, in 
a moderate compromise. We do not need 
to wear the entire dress of a smallpox 
victim in order to acquire the disease. A 


The Passing of the Burden 51 


bit of ribbon will do it! And if we pre- 
sumably turn our backs upon the world 
and the worship of Mammon, and yet 
retain and hug one worldly expediency or 
practice, we shall be accounted the followers 
of an alien god. 

But the majority of burdens cannot be 
disposed of by the method of flight. In 
flight they are our inseparable companions. 
We have no resources but to cast them on 
God. What becomes of them when we 
take them to the Lord? There are some 
burdens which pass away, even while they 
are being recounted. They evaporate in 
the telling! To talk about them to God 
is to lose them! If you take a dimmed, 
steamed mirror into a dry, sunny room, 
the obscuring veil passes away, and the 
mirror becomes clear. And there are some 
burdens which perplex the spirit, and 
hinder its outlook, which, when we take 
them to the Lord, pass away like mist in 
the sunny light of the morning. Let me 
mention two or three. 

There is the burden of fearfulness. What 


52 Thirsting for the Springs 


is this burden except the lack of assurance ? 
The depression is born of uncertainty. 
The soul moves in fear, because it does not 
feel the presence of God. The lack of assur- 
ance breeds the restless offspring of anxiety, 
fretfulness, and care. Now this is one of 
the burdens which evaporate in the telling. 
Fearfulness is always the companion of 
little faith. The Master has told us this 
in a very significant sentence. ‘“ Why are 
ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” The 
largeness of the one term is always pro- 
portioned to the smallness of the other. 
If we have little faith, we must have large 
fearfulness. If we have triumphant faith, 
fearfulness is abolished. “ Perfect love 
casteth out fear.” While we are talking 
to our Father, the sweet genius of assur- 
ance returns. Our faith awakes. Our love 
revives. The heart grows calm in spiritual 
fellowship. ‘“‘ Cast thy burden upon the 
Lord,” and, even while thou art telling it, 
the burden will disappear. 

There is the burden of perplexity. Here, 
again, is a burden which frequently dis- 


The Passing of the Burden 53 


appears while we are describing it. Ii 
we take it into our Father’s house, even if 
it does not pass entirely away, it will be so 
eased that it will not crush us like an iron 
garment. We shall have freedom of move- 
ment. It is a beautiful experience in the 
lives of the saints that, when they take 
their burden to God, they frequently find 
the clue even while they are bowed in 
prayer. The atmosphere of devotion is 
favourable to revelations, and visions are 
multiplied when souls are upon their knees. 
** When I thought how I might know this, 
it was too painful forme . . . uniil I went 
into the sanctuary of God.” He took his 
perplexity into the presence of God, and 
considered it in the atmosphere of the 
sanctuary, and the pain and the burden of 
it were gone! “In Thy light shall we see 
light.” 

There is the burden of guilt. No man can 
reverently and penitently take this burden 
to the Lord without losing it. It goes in 
the telling of it. “Father, I am no more 
worthy to be called thy son, make . . .” 


54 Thirsting for the Springs 


“Bring forth the best robes.” The con- 
fession of ignoble sonship had not been 
fully uttered before the father called for the 
robes of restored salvation. “So I saw 
in my dream, that just as Christian came 
up to the cross, his burden loosed from off 
his shoulder, and fell from off his back.” 
“Cast thy burden upon the Lord.” 

And yet there are some burdens which 
are not removed even when we take them 
to the Lord. They do not disappear in 
the telling. Is there some other gracious 
ministry of the loving Lord? Yes, if the 
burden remain, the bearer of it will be 
strengthened. “ There was given to me a 
thorn in the flesh. . . . Concerning this 
thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it 
might depart from me, and He hath said 
to me, My grace is sufficient for thee.” 
The Apostle cast his burden upon the Lord. 
He asked that it might be removed. The 
burden remained, but the Apostle was 
strengthened! “Most gladly therefore I 
glory in my weakness.” This is the way 
of the Lord. Some burdens are permitted 


The Passing of the Burden. 55 


to remain. Perhaps the burden is an un- 
welcome and unpleasant duty. Perhaps 
it is some physical infirmity. Perhaps it is 
prolonged labour in a wageless and most 
exhausting sphere. What then will God 
do with us? “He shall sustain thee.” 
The Lord will deal with the bearer of the 
burden. He will increase thy strength, and 
so in reality diminish thy load. This word 
“sustain ” is a fine, wealthy word of most 
comforting content. There is in it a sugges- 
tion of the ministry of a nurse. He will 
deal with us as though we were infants. 
Ee will be to us the great mother-God. 
And He will manifest towards us all the 
tenderness of a nursing ministry. There is 
also in the word the suggestion of food. 
He will feed us. He will give to us the 
bread of life. He will increase our vitality. 
He will make our powers more alive, more 
wakeiul, more exuberant. And I find in 
the word the further gracious meaning of 
“support.” He will carry me, if need be. 
“Hold Thou me up!” cries one of the 
Psalmists. The word indicates one of the 


56 Thirsting for the Springs 


beautiful ministries of our Lord. We have 
seen the strong elder son taking the arm 
of his weakly mother, and holding her up. 
The kindly service is illustrative of the 
helpful fellowship of God. “ He is at thy 
right hand.” 

The concluding word of the text is pur- 
posed to heighten the assurance of the 
Psalmist into the peace of absolute certainty. 
“He shall never suffer the righteous to be 
moved.” The life that is held by God, 
possessed and inspired by God, will be 
delivered from all trembling uncertainties. 
On the one hand, he will not be dismayed 
by a frown or a threat; nor, on the other 
hand, will he be enticed by some bewitch- 
ing fascination. He will continue his. way 
unmoved. ‘The road will be straight; the 
walk will be firm; his footing will be sure. 
The Bible appears to exult in its proclama- 
tion of the fine, confident “ walk” of the 
man who companies with God. He does 
not move with the trembling solicitude 
of one who steps upon miry clay, but he 
strides out with the confident step of a 


The Passing of the Burden 57 


man whose way is upon rock. This is ever 
the issue of intimate fellowship with the 
Lord. Men are delivered from fearfulness, 
and fickleness, and weakness. Their hearts 
are encouraged and lightened, and the 
heavy burden becomes a tolerable load. 
““ Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He 
shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer 
the righteous to be moved.” 





ALTARS AND ALTAR FIRES 


Text: “ The God that answereth by fire, let Him 
be God.”—1 Kings 18: 24. 


I suppose that the altars built by Elijah 
and the prophets of Baal would be very 
much alike. To all outward seeming they 
were equally promising, and we should have 
been unable to surmise to which of them 
the fire would be sent. Anybody can 
build an altar; we need a God for the 
creation of a fire! Now it is just that 
flame-element which the Christian religion 
claims to be able to provide. It claims to 
be judged by its ability to kindle and in- 
flame, to turn the cold altar into the place 
of living fire. When I have built my little 
heap of stones, the Lord God will con- 
summate my erection in hallowed flame. 
God will supply the essential, the element 
of inspiration, the radiant gift which will 
convert the little altar into His own 
dwelling-place and sanctuary. 


59 


60 Thirsting for the Springs 


(1) Anyone can build an altar; it re- 
quires a God to provide the flame. Anybody 
can build a house; we need the Lord for the 
creation of ahome. A house is an agglomera- 
tion of bricks and stones, with an assorted 
collection of manufactured goods; a home 
is the abiding-place of ardent affection, of 
fervent hope, of genial trust. There is 
many a homeless man who lives in a richly 
furnished house. There is many a fifteen- 
pound house in the crowded street which 
is an illuminated and beautiful home. The 
sumptuously furnished house may only 
be an exquisitely sculptured tomb; the 
scantily furnished house may be the very 
hearthstone of the eternal God. Now the 
Christian religion claims to be able to 
convert houses into homes, to supply the 
missing fire, and to bring an aspiring flame 
to the cold and chilling heap. The New 
Testament does not say very much about 
homes ; it says a great deal about the things 
that make them. It speaks about life and 
love and joy and peace and rest! If we 
get a house and put these into it, we shall 


Aliars and Altar Fires 6] 


have secured a home. Here, then, are two 
houses. In both of them there is no love, 
no joy, no peace, norest. There is no flame 
of geniality and radiant hope. Let us 
bring the Christian religion into one of the 
houses, and do as you please with the other. 
In one house the tenants shall all kneel 
before King Jesus. They shall be one in 
common purpose, and they shall strive 
together with common mind and will. 
What will assuredly happen? With ab- 
solute certainty the house will become a 
home! That is a glorious common-place 
in the history of the Christian faith. Where 
Christ has been enthroned, and every 
member of the family becomes a wor- 
shipper, there steals into the common life 
a warmth of affection which converts even 
trivial relationships into radiant kinships. 
What shall we do with the other house ? 
Sinreigns! Passionreigns! Estrangement 
reigns! There is continued tumult and 
unrest. What shall we do? Call upon 
Baal! Call upon “ the god of this world! ” 
It would be a fruitless quest. There is 


62 Thirsting for the Springs 


nothing for it but the grace of Christ. God 
changes houses into homes; let Him be 
God. 

(2) Anyone can proclaim a moral ideal ; 
we need the Lord for the creation of moral 
enthusiasm. I suppose in fundamental 
ethics there is not a single person in my 
congregation who has any need of in- 
struction. Probably we could all become 
teachers. What need is there for teach- 
ing about such matters as lust, falsehood, 
and avarice? Everybody knows all about 
them. But the possession of a moral ideal 
does not necessarily transfigure the life. A 
man might draw up, for the guidance of his 
fellowmen, an exalted code, and yet he may 
be the most notorious scamp in the city. 
The man who compiles the moral headlines 
in the copy books which our little ones have 
to transcribe may yet be the deepest-dyed 
villain who walks the ways of men. You 
may have a neatly printed list of moral 
maxims standing beside your calendar upon 
the desk of your counting-house, and yet 
they may no more influence your com- 


Altars and Altar Fires 63 


mercial life than does the wall paper which 
covers the walls. The erection of moral 
ideals is the building of an altar. Now 
we want the flame, the fire of a passionate 
moral enthusiasm. Where shall we get 
the fre? We exalt our moral ideals in the 
minds of our children, but how shall we 
get them to love the right, and to fervently 
aspire after it? The Christian religion 
claims to answer the question. Here are 
two lives. In both of them there is know- 
ledge of the moral ideal. In both of them 
the character is immoral. Let us bring 
the Christian religion to the one, and you 
shall do as you please with the other. 
“* He will baptize with the Holy Ghost, and 
with fire.’ The issue of fellowship with the 
Christ is to be the inspiration, whose in- 
fluence shall be felt like fire. Love becomes 
a factor in the life, and cold duty becomes 
a fervent delight. How will you deal with 
the other man? How will you bring to 
him the fire? I confess I know no answer. 
Apart from the Christ, there seems to be 
no way of bringing fire on to cold altars. 


64 Thirsting for the Springs 


The Lord brings the spirit of burning, which 
makes aspiration fervent, and consumes 
away the indwelling filth, “The God 
that answereth by fire, let Him be God.” 

(3) Any nation can make legal enactments 
against crime. We need the law to make 
men hate wt. The only defence against 
crime is not a punitive law, but a passionate, 
spiritual recoil. If we would deliver men 
from sin, we must make them loathe it. 
Some way or other we must kindle a holy 
hatred in man, the fire of blazing indigna- 
tion. There are many men who are kept 
from crime, who nevertheless do not dislike 
it. Abolish the police, and at the moment 
of abolition, these men would stretch out 
their hands and grasp the forbidden fruit. 
But virtue created by fear of the prison 
will be quite out of place in heaven. The 
only worthy virtue is the virtue which is 
the fruit of love. The only security from 
sin is found in the ardours of a passionate 
resentment. We must make men hate it. 
How shall we light the fire? Let us turn 
to the Christ. “No man can serve two 


Altars and Altar Fires 65 


masters, for either he will hate the one 
and love the other.” Let us pause here. 
“Hate the one.” That appears to be 
suggestive of what we need. We are in 
search of a hatred. We are told we cannot 
serve God and mammon. If we love the 
one we must hate the other, and so for the 
hatred of sin we must turn to the love of 
our Lord. We are brought back to the old 
fellowship. Kinship with the Christ begins 
in humble surrender, deepens into intimacy, 
and fructifies in loving dispositions. Out 
of the love there is born the hatred. Leta 
man love the virtuous, and he will loathe 
_ the vicious. 

(4) Any municipality can coerce men into 
charity. We need the Lord for the creation 
of philanthropy. The Poor Law system 
may compel us into giving, but in the 
gift there may be nothing of the fervour 
of a passionate good-will. How can we 
get cold charity converted into radiant 
philanthropy? Who will bring the fire 
to the frozen altar? There is an old man 
in the Christian Scriptures who speaks in 


E 


66 Tlursting for the Springs 


this wise: “‘ He loved me and gave Himself 
for me”; ‘‘ we love, because He first loved 
us”; “ the love of Christ constraineth me.” 
Out of that love for the Master there spring 
all the beautiful ministries which seek the 
welfare of our fellow-men. Love for the 
Lord just blossoms into philanthropy. 
There is no other way for the making 
of philanthropists. It is kindled by our 
attachment to the Christ of God. “The 
God that answereth by fire, let Him be 
. God.” 


HOW TO KNOW GOD BETTER 


Text: “Increasing in the knowledge of God.”— 
Col. 1: 10. 


I want to speak to-night about growth 
in spiritual knowledge. Haqw can we 
strengthen our grip of spiritual realities ? 
How can we enter more penetratingly 
into the unsearchable riches of Christ ? 
How can we get at life’s marrow, at its 
pith, its real good, its God? These 
questions suggest the subject of our 
meditation. I want to recall two or three 
helpful counsels which indicate to us the 
way of larger growth in the knowledge 
of God. 

(1) “ Be still, and know that I am God.” 
Stillness is one of the conditions of know- 
ledge. This stillness is not the opposite 
to noise and tumult, but the opposite 
of excessive and perspirmg movement. 
We use the same variation of the figure 


in our colloquial speech. We advise men 
67 


68 Thirsting for the Springs 


to “take things a little more quietly.” 
The counsel does not suggest the abate- 
ment of clamour, but the relaxing of in- 
tensity, the slackening of speed. “ Be 
still,” release the strain, moderate the speed, 
ease down a little! Surely this is a very 
pertinent warning for our own day. How 
many men and women are living at high 
pressure, the high pressure which is in- 
dicative of perilous strain. No man gets 
the best out of life whose life is on the 
stretch. Even the best violin needs to 
have its strings occasionally relaxed. Its 
music will fail if the strain is persistent. 
And life fails to reach its highest ministries 
if strain and stress are persistent. The 
principle applies to every department of 
our being. Physical strain is antagonistic 
to the highest good. Mental strain is not 
productive of fruitful solutions. To leave 
a bewildering problem, and to ease the 
mind by giving it temporary leisure, is 
often the first and best step to its ultimate 
unravelment. 

And is there not too much strain in the 


How to know God better 69 


life of the spirit? There is one lne in 
that great and beautiful hymn, “ Jesus, 
Lover of my soul,” which I always feel 
is somewhat of a discord, “Hangs my 
helpless soul on Thee!” I do not like 
the stretch and the strain which are sug- 
gested by the words. It reminds one of 
the picture with which we are all familiar, 
and which is found adorning the walls 
of so many homes. There is a wild and 
tempestuous sea, and a rock rising out 
of the deep in the shape of a cross, and 
clinging to the cold rock there is a figure 
of a woman, with agonised face and stream- 
ing hair, holding on for bare life. I do 
not like the picture. There is nothing 
to corroborate it in the New Testament 
Scriptures. The New Testament picture 
is not that of a poor weak soul clinging 
with half benumbed hands to a cold rock, 
but of a soul resting in the hands of the 
Christ. But I am afraid the picture is 
descriptive of too many lives among the 
followers of Christ. We want less stretch, 
less strain, less feverishness, more rest. 


70 Thirsting for the Springs 


We are not called upon to be always on 
the rack. It is not demanded of us that 
our lives should abound in strain. If 
life is to be fruitful, and increasing in 
divine knowledge, it must settle down into 
a more steady rest. I have often paused 
at a word in the Book of the prophet 
Ezekiel, in the wonderful passage which 
portrays the living creatures with the 
mystic faces and wings: “ When they 
stood, they let down their wings.” That 
last clause expressed the counsel of the 
Psalmist. We need to let down our wings, 
to check our rapid movement, to “ be still.” 

“Be still and know.” How can God 
give us visions when life is hurrying at a 
precipitate rate? I have stood in the 
National Gallery and seen people gallop 
round the chamber and glance at twelve 
of Turner’s pictures in the space of five 
minutes. Surely we might say to such 
trippers, “Be still, and know Turner!” 
Gaze quietly at one little bit of cloud, or 
at one branch, or at one wave of the sea, 
or at one ray of the drifting moon. “ Be 


How to knew Ged betier 71 


still, and know Turner.” But God has 
difficulty in getting us still. That is per- 
haps why He has sometimes employed 
the ministry of dreams. Men have had 
“visions in the night.” In the daytime 
I have a divine visitor in the shape of some 
worthy thought, or noble impulse, or 
hallowed suggestion, but I am in such 
feverish haste that I do not heed it, and 
pass along. I do not “turn aside to see 
this great sight,” and so I lose the heavenly 
vision. Ii I would know more of God, I 
must relax the strain and moderate the 
pace. I must “be still.” 

(2) “If any man will do His will he 
shall know.” 'That is suggestive of location 
and outlook. It indicates standing ground 
and consequent vision. I was walking 
the other day through a lovely wood in 
the North Riding of Yorkshire. My vision 
was bounded by the trees to the right and 
to the left, and the undergrowth which 
stretched about my feet on every side. 
One who knew the wood took me a few 
paces from the beaten track to a little 


72 Thirsting for the Springs 


square of elevated platform, and a wood- 
land panorama stretched before me in 
bewildering beauty. The native knew the 
standing ground whence the vision could 
be obtained. And here is another stand- 
ing ground: “If any man will do”; 
and here is another panorama—“ he shall 
know!” I am to stand in the doing, and 
I shall experience the knowing: I am to 
stand in the middle of a deed, and I shall 
find the vantage ground for surveying 
the things of, God. We have too often 
looked for visions in the midst of arguments. 
Here we are counselled to look for them 
in the midst of obedience. Go and do an 
act of mercy, and in the midst of the 
doing look around for God, and you shall 
have some vision of His glory. In the 
life you shall find the light, for “light is 
sown for the righteous.” Go out and try 
to reclaim a fellowman, and in the midst 
of the saving ministry look about for the 
Redeemer, and you shall have some vision 
of His glory. Plant your feet in obedience, 
and your eyes shall gaze upon the unfolding 


How to know God better 73 


glories of the mind of God. “If any man 
will do His will he shall know.” 

(3) “‘ He was known to them in the breaking 
of bread.” When was He made known? 
““In the breaking of bread.” Then He 
employed the occasion of an ordinary 
meal to make Himself known to them. 
It is a beautiful suggestion. The common- 
place shall break open and reveal to us 
the King. If I invite Him to come into 
my house and share with me the common 
life of the common day, through the hum- 
drum life He will make Himself known 
to me. If He be invited into the kitchen, 
then through the common ministries of 
the house He will give revelations of His 
glory. If He be invited into the office, 
then through all the mechanical details 
of the monotonous day we shall see His 
appearing. If He be invited into the 
study, then He will redeem the work from 
formality, and dry duty will be changed 
into delightful fellowship. If I invite him 
to share my pleasures, my very joys will 
be rarefied by the light of His countenance. 


14 Thirsting for the Springs 


He is willing to make His revelations 
through the humble things of the ordinary 
day. He will make Himself known to 
us “in the breaking of bread.” 

(4) “I count all things but loss . . . that 
I may know Him.” What am I prepared 
to pay for my knowledge? What did 
Paul pay? “The loss of all things.” 
He looks as though his discipleship had cost 
him home and kinship and inheritance. 
But nothing was allowed to count in 
. comparison with the knowledge of Christ. 
Nothing else was allowed for one moment 
to intrude its allurements. Ease, money, 
fame, were counted as “dung” that he 
might know Christ. I do not wonder 
that this man had visions, and heard 
things which could not be put into speech ! 
I do not wonder that his letters abound 
in doxologies as he contemplates the un- 
folding glory of his Lord! Have I an altar 
of sacrifice in my life? What am I pre- 
pared to offer upon it? Have I shed any 
blood? Have I ever tired myself out 
for Jesus? Have I been willing to be 


How to know God better 15 


misunderstood for Jesus? Have I been 
willing to stand alone for Jesus, and suffer 
apparent defeat? If my discipleship has 
brought me into these deserts, then I 
know the meaning of the gracious promise 
which announces that “the desert shall 
rejoice and blossom as the rose.” If we 
would know the Lord, we must be “ ready 
to be offered.” The altar must be always 
built, and we must be prepared for sacrifice. 
Ii we know “ the fellowship of His suffer- 
ings,’ we shall know the radiant glory 
of His resurrection. 





THE EARTHLY AND THE 
HEAVENLY 


Text: “ We speak that we do know, and testify that 
we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I 
have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how 
shall ye believe, if I tell you heavenly things ?”—John 
oe) EL, 12. 


How calming and how healing is the 
tone of authority which sounds in these 
words—* We know,” ‘“‘ We have seen.” 
That is the tone we like to recognise in 
our medical men. When the physician 
in our home moves about in apparent 
knowledge and masterhood, how it subdues 
the inclination to panic, how it allays 
the fears! It is the tone we like to find 
in our statesmen. It is the expression 
of spacious sympathy, the quiet confidence 
that breathes from the comprehensive 
mind. “We know,” “We have seen.” 
All the Master’s teaching has this back- 


ground of personal experience. It is a 
77 


78 Thirsting for the Springs 


beautiful exercise to carry these words, 
“We know,” “We have seen,” right 
through the Gospels, and let them be 
sounded upon every page like an affirma- 
tory refrain, like a grand “amen.” Let 
us attempt the exercise with one or two 
of the Master’s teachings. “ Neither did 
this man sin nor his parents, but that 
the works of God should be made manifest 
in him.” Is that really so? May a man’s 
blindness be his strength? May my in- 
firmity be the instrument of my service? 
Is it possible that my very encumbrances 
may be marshalled for the glory of God? 
What is my guarantee? Just this: “ We 
know,” ‘‘ We have seen.” “When he 
was yet a long way off, his father saw him 
and ran and fell on his neck and kissed 
him.” How may I be assured of the 
gracious evangel ? What is my guarantee ? 
Just this: “‘ We know,” “ We have seen.” 
If we wish to know the power and value 
of this authoritative tone, let us remove 
it, and then see how the speech trembles 
in uncertainty and timidity. “ It is highly 


The Earthly and the Heavenly ‘9 


probable that whosoever will may take 
the water of life freely!” Is not the 
hesitancy productive of chills, and is not 
the trembling spirit plunged into deeper 
dismay? “There is a strong pre-sup- 
position that thy brother shall rise again.” 
The very timidity of the expression would 
intensify our doubt. How welcome is the 
strong, commanding word: “ We know,” 
“We have seen.” 

In the reality of the Master’s experience 
all our personal hopes and knowledge are 
born. My hope has birth when I hear Him 
say, “I know.” My soul gains rest in the 
assurance “ We have seen.” If the Lord 
only made a grand guess, we are of all men 
most miserable! But He came from above. 
His home was in the heavenlies. He was 
familiar with all its resplendent estate. He 
shared its glory. From this abode of light 
He stooped to our sin-rent and sin-defiled, 
troubled, timid souls, and quietly said: 
“We know,” “‘ We have seen.” 

Now mark the progress of the passage. 
“We speak that we do know, and testify 


80 Thirsting for the Springs 


that we have seen, and ye receive not our 
witness. If I tell you earthly things and 
ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I 
tell you heavenly things?” Let us mark 
the connections of this passage with scrupu- 
lous care. You will not believe the earthly, 
how can ye believe the heavenly? The 
words appear to enshrine a condition. The 
condition of receiving the heavenly is the 
acceptance of the earthly? If I am in- 
different to the one, I cannot apprehend 
the other. What is the earthly? Some- 
thing as plain as a pike-staff! What is the 
heavenly ? Truth, partially shrouded and 
veiled, lying back in the profound depths of 
the spirit. Let us look at the earthly. 
There are some things so clear that they 
cannot be missed. They dwell upon the 
plane of the earthly: they are clearly 
revealed and demonstrated in the sphere of 
the earthly. Their proof is consummated 
in the regions of the earthly. To open 
the eyes is to see them! Do we believe 
them ? I use that cardinal word, not in the 
sense of “ opinion ” or mere mental assent, 


The Earthly and the Heavenly 81 


I use it with the significance of “ convic- 
tion,” and a conviction is something that 
makes a “convict” of me, arresting me, 
and holding me down to its own determined 
way. In this binding sense do we “ be- 
lieve”’ the earthly? Let me give two or 
three examples. 

The deepest peace is found in the noblest 
life. That is one of the earthlies. I have 
not mentioned God or heaven. I have 
mentioned a truth which is daily demon- 
strated on the purely earthly plane. It is 
an earthly fact. The peace of this city 
to-night dwells in the hearts of its noblest 
citizens. Do we believe that truth? Do 
we pay homage to it? Do we allow it 
to press down upon every part of our 
life, and shape and mould it? Or is the 
truth discarded, “rejected of men,” and 
treated with contempt? “If ye believe 
not the earthly, how shall ye believe the 
heavenly ? ” 

The loving eye has the finest vision. I 
proclaim this as an obtrusive fact in the 
sphere of the earthly. It receives con- 

F 


82 Thirsting for the Springs 


firmation é¢very day. The mother has 
elearer eyes than the mistress. The friend 
has deeper insight than the foe. Love has 
visions where cynicism walks in the night. 
The art of criticism is just the art of admira- 
tion, and the truly admirable, is only 
discerned by the eye of love. Do we 
believe it? Has our assent to it become 
a principle, and the ruling principle of 
our life? “If ye believe not the earthly, 
how shall ye believe the heavenly ? ” 

“A man’s life consisteth not in the abund- 
ance of things which he possesseth.” Here 
again is an earthly fact lying large upon the 
surface of common life! It is patent to 
everybody whose mind is even partially 
awake. The measure of life is not deter- 
mined by the bulk of our possessions. 
There are many men with £2 a week, living 
larger lives than men with incomes vastly 
multiplied. Do we believe it? Is the 
belief shaping our plans, our purposes, our 
ambitions? “ If ye believe not the earthly, 
how shall ye believe the heavenly ? ” 

So that the crucial question is this: 


The Earthly and the Heavenly 83 


What is our attitude to the earthlies? 
Is it one of indifference, cynicism, denial or 
contempt? Do we pay homage to fact? 
Do we bow to what we know? Or are we 
attempting to peer into the distant while 
we are disloyal to that which is near? 
Christ declares that reverent obeisance to 
things revealed is the only way to the 
apprehension of things that are yet un- 
revealed. Homage to the earthly is the 
condition of recognising the heavenly. The 
Lord will not permit us to have any fruit in 
the prying curiosity among the heavenlies 
while we despise and trample upon the 
things that stand revealed at our very feet. 
He has glories upon glories to make known 
unto us! He will lead us into the love 
and purpose of the divine fatherhood, into 
the glories of redemption, into the mar- 
vellous ministries of the Holy Spirit, into 
the all-subduing outlook upon the im- 
mortal life. But we must begin by rever- 
encing that which we know. The genuine- 
ness of our appetite will be judged by our 
attitude to the bread already given. 


84 Thirsting for the Springs 


What then do youknow? Do you know 
this: Love is the greatest thing in the 
world? Kneel down before the truth, and 
pay it reverent homage. Do you know 
this: Purity is sight? Bow down before 
it, and let it govern the common day. Do 
you know this: Truth is the dynamic of 
progress? Bend your will to it, and let it 
find expression in the ordinary affairs of 
the daily life. Go down on your knees to 
the earthly He has revealed, and in the 
midst of your reverence and obedience, 
the good Lord will hear your ery for light. 
“Light is sown for the righteous.” Obey- 
ing the earthly, He will lead you into the 
heavenly. He will take you into the house 
of interpretation, and He will unveil to you 
some of the “things” which God hath 
prepared for them that love Him. 


“IN CHRIST JESUS” 
Text: “ In Christ Jesus.”—Romans 8: 1. 


“In Curist Jesus!” That is the centre 
of rest. The phrase leads us at once into 
the mystical heart of the Christian religion. 
Do I chill and repel your approaches by the 
use of the word mystical? Is that one of 
your perplexities with the Christian religion, 
that its forces are so mystical, so remote 
from the hard rough-and-tumble roads of 
practical life? But where have we got 
that antithesis of the mystical and the 
practical? Where can we find the justi- 
fication for the divorce which places the 
mystical in dreamy castles in the air, and 
the practical in houses of bricks and mortar, 
reared upon the common earth? Is there 
any inevitable incongruity between them ? 
What is the interpretation offered by the 
dictionary ? Let us see what suggestion is 
given by the latest and most scholarly of 
these guides. Mystical—‘ hidden from or 


85 


86 Thirsting for the Springs 


obscure to human knowledge; mysterious; 
obscure; expressing a sense comprehen- 
sible only to a higher grade of intelligence, 
or to those especially initiated.” And 
what is the significance of the practical ? 
Practical—* pertaining to action, practice, 
or use.” I discern no antagonism between 
the two. I think they may be found in 
the most happy and intimate wedlock. 
There are forces, recognised only by their 
possessors, and even to them obscure and 
mysterious, which are, nevertheless, most 
powerful ministries in the domain of action 
and practice. What say you of love? 
Is it mystical? It is known only to the 
initiated. Love is known only to the lover, 
and even to him it is unknown. It is un- 
known, yet well known. Itis most mystical. 
Is it practical? ‘“ Love beareth all things.” 
It is “the greatest thing in the world.” 
All the most practical and palpable forces 
in common life are steeped in the mystical. 
The more refined the force, the more dim 
and undefinable its kingdom. Coarseness 
is comparatively compassable, but when we 


“In Christ Jesus” 87 


rise into the higher graces and refinements 
of the spirit, the measuring rod must be left 
behind. There is many a practical river 
which has its birth-place in the misty and 
inaccessible heights. 

When, therefore, I use the word “ mysti- 
cal,’ I do not exclude the content of the 
practical. And here is a mystical relation- 
ship, fraught with every kind and quality 
of beneficent, practical issue—‘‘ them that 
are in Christ Jesus.” What is the principle 
enshrined in the phrase? The principle 
is this. One personality is rooted and 
embedded in another personality, and re- 
ceives from it an effluence which deter- 
mines the trend and colour of its life. One 
is im the other. Well, is that principle 
altogether in the clouds? I find examples 
of its application on every side. Wher- 
ever I turn I find illustrative instances ; 
teacher and scholars, master and disciples, 
fountains and rivers, one personality in- 
serted into the personality of another, and 
receiving the determining gifts of thought 
and inspiration. If I turn to the sphere of 


88 Thirsting for the Springs 


politics, I find fountains and rivers, vines 
and branches. I find what is called “the 
Manchester School,” a body of politicians 
whose political life is primarily rooted in 
the personality of Richard Cobden, from 
whom they derive the colour of their 
thought, the spirit of their policy, and the 
character of their ideal. “They that are 
in Richard Cobden.” If I turn to litera- 
ture, I find societies of men and women 
gathered in loving fellowship round about 
the personality of individual men. Here 
is a Ruskin Society! Ruskin is known 
among them as “the master.” The dis- 
ciples seek to acquire the master’s thought, 
to perpetuate the master’s spirit, to in- 
carnate the master’s ideal, to give it em- 
bodiment in schemes of practical enterprise. 
“They that are in John Ruskin.” It is 
not otherwise if I turn to the regions of 
art; I find whole schools of men inhaling 
the breath of artistic life from the thought 
and spirit of another. I find the principle 
operating even in spheres ecclesiastical. 
‘“*Puseyite!”? That sounds indicative of 


“In Christ Jesus” 89 


master and disciple, of fountain and river. 
Wesleyan! That is suggestive of an ecclesi- 
astical root with multitudinous branches. 
“They that are in John Wesley.” All 
these are illustrative of a predominant 
principle that one man’s life becomes the 
fountain of other men’s rivers. In Cobden! 
In Ruskin! In Turner! In Wesley! 
“In Christ!” I feel the utter unworthi- 
ness and inadequacy of the illustrations. 
I only offer them as hints, suggestions, 
sign-posts, and even a rough and crumb- 
lng sign-post may point the way to the 
golden city. 

Well, now, if we are not altogether 
strangers to the principle in common life, 
let us see what are the implications of the 
supreme fellowship expressed in the words 
of my text. “In Christ Jesus.” On man’s 
side, what are the elements in the gracious 
union? What does it involve? How can 
any personality be rooted and embedded 
in the personality of the Christ? How can 
a man become “in Christ”? First of all. 
it implies the choice of Christ. A man must 


90 Tharsting for the Springs 


choose his centre. He must make up his 
mind as to what shall be the centre round 
which his life shall revolve. He must 
determine his leader, to whom he will pay 
reverence and obeisance. Now that is an 
intellectual choice, and Christianity always 
appeals to the intelligence. It puts no 
premium on blindness. It offers no reward 
to those whose eyes are closed in guilty sleep. 
From end to end of the Christian Scriptures 
the clarion is sounding to awake. “ Awake, 
awake, my soul.” “ Awake, awake, put 
on thy strength, O Jerusalem!” “ Awake, 
thou that sleepest!” “Now it is high 
time to awake!” That is the note of the 
Christian religion. It calls for wakefulness, 
for mental alertness, for the exercise of a 
bright and vigorous intelligence. “ What 
think ye?” says the Master. Put your 
intelligence to work that your choices may 
be sound. Don’t go on blindly! “ What 
think ye?” Is it a challenge to the 
intellect? Look about. Exercise thy 
powers of observation. Investigate the 
alternatives that present themselves. In- 


“In Christ Jesus” 91 


spect the creations of mammon. Look 
closely at the works and workmanship of 
Christ. ‘What think ye?” Make up 
your minds. Choose your centre. Register 
your choice. 

But to be “in Christ” means more than 
the choice of a centre; it implies the 
surrender of the will. My brethren, it is 
no use our seeking to evade this supreme 
demand. The treasuries of the Christian 
religion cannot be entered through the 
ministry of merely intellectual exercises. 
If we do not surrender the will, we can 
never even faintly appreciate the spirit 
and genius of the Christian religion. Mental 
activity will bring a man up to the gate; 
he can only enter by moral sacrifice. Not 
through the weighing and assaying of 
grammatical usages, not by a penetrating 
exegesis, are we going to pass into the 
fellowship of Christ, but by the all-discover- 
ing ministry of a surrendered life. I know 
that this is familiar to everybody ; why then 
do we not do it? I will give you the 
answer in the words of the noblest gentle- 


92 Thirsting for the Springs 


man it has been my honour to know, a man 
whose personality was refined into such 
hallowed beauty and chasteness that all 
his judgments are attended with peculiar 
significance and weight. Henry Drummond 
once said: “ What do I think keeps men 
from becoming Christians? Some special 
sin which they prefer to Christ. I think 
some one definite sin. In every life, I 
believe, there is some one particular sin, 
outstanding only to oneself, different in 
different cases, but always one with which 
the secret history is woven through and 
through. This is that which the uncon- 
verted man will not give up for Christ.” I 
will leave the quotation with this one 
remark, that a man must be prepared to 
surrender that one thing before he can 
come into fruitful fellowship with Jesus 
Christ, the Son of God. 

Having chosen his centre of rest, having 
made a sacrifice of his will, let the man now 
abide in the aititude of rest. Let the mind 
rest in the Master’s thought. Let the con- 
science rest in the Master’s commandment. 


“In Christ Jesus” 93 


Let the heart rest in the Master’s promises. 
Don’t get away from His thought, His 
commandment, His promise! “ Abide in 
Him!” Make your home there. Don’t 
stray hither and thither in worldly flirta- 
tion. “Rest in the Lord!” In such 
ceaseless abiding you will know the in- 
expressible experience of being “ in Christ.” 
“* All my springs are in Thee.” 





* APT TO TEACH ” 
Text: “ Apt to Teach.”—2 Timothy 2: 24. 


“Apt to Treacu.” How exquisitely this 
sentence is placed! On the one hand 
there is the grace of “gentleness.” On 
the other hand there is the grace of 
“patience.” It is an aptitude resting 
in the embrace of two lovely dispositions. 
Or, if I may change the figure, it is a 
strong and graceful flower fed by two 
conspicuous roots. Where do the roots 
gather their provision? The aptitude to 
teach rises out of the twin dispositions 
of gentleness and patience: where do these 
obtain their resources? We must search 
down through the many layers of the 
chapter to its beginning, and we shall 
find the object of our search in the suggestive 
words,—* Strong in the grace that is in 
Christ Jesus.” That is the primal resource. 
From that we rise through the ministries 


of divine fellowship, and hallowed remem- 
95 


96 Thirsting for the Springs 


brance, and consecrated toil, up to the 
Christian dispositions of gentleness and 
patience, and to the crowning aptitude 
of being empowered to communicate one’s 
experience to others. Such is the setting 
of the clause. Now let us give this par- 
ticular aptitude a little more detailed 
inspection, and mark the conditions of 
its spiritual attainment. “The servant 
of the Lord must be . . . apt to teach.” 
What are the implications of this aptitude. 


I, THE TEACHER MUST HAVE A MESSAGE. 

Have I got anything worth telling? 
Do I regard anything I have to say as 
of infinite moment? Is it a matter of 
life and death to anybody? Is it worth 
anybody’s while coming across the street 
to listen? Have I got a clear evangel, 
_and if so, what do I consider the very 
marrow of the message? I want to force 
the teachers to face these most searching 
and revealing questions. What are our 
“good tidings”? ? Suppose we were face 
to face with a crowd of children who 


“ Apt to Teach” 97 


had to learn all that they would know 
about the unseen from our lips, and suppose 
that we were permitted only one short 
lesson in which to make the revelation, 
what would be the burden of our speech ? 
Are we clear about this? Are we careless, 
slovenly, sleepy trumpeters, or do we 
sound clear, definite, resounding notes ? 
Surely our message would all gather round 
about the Christ, and surely the emphasis 
of the message would be found in the 
proclamation of truths like these :—Jesus 
loves; Jesus saves; Jesus keeps. Jesus 
loves! It is an exquisite experience to 
watch the face of a little child when even 
the rudimentary elements of this glorious 
truth break upon his mind and heart. 
It is one of the sweetest moments in life 
to tell that story into the ears of a little 
child who listens to it for the first time. 
Jesus saves! He saves from sin, from 
moral infirmity; from spiritual stagna- 
tion; from spiritual death. Jesus keeps! 
He not only keeps us as we protect the 
candle flame from the rude wind that 
G 


98 Thirsting for the Springs 


would blow it out; He keeps us as we 
protect a flower, nourishing and cherishing 
it unto unfoldings of ever-deepening beauty, 
and maturing it into the stage of ultimate 
perfection. The teacher whose teaching 
is to be eternally fruitful must have a 
message that never loses communion with 
these all-vital beginnings. 


Il. THE TEACHER MUST HAVE 
AN EXPERIENCE. 

What do I know about my message? 
Can I defend and confirm it by illustrations 
from my own life? How do I present 
the truth? There are at least four ways 
in which I may present it, and they mark 
a gradation of deepening impressiveness 
and effectiveness. I can present truth 
as an abstraction. I can present it em- 
bodied in a parable, a story, or a fairy 
tale. I can present it enshrined in a 
work of art. I can present it incarnated 
in a life. Experiment with these four 
methods upon a company of little children. 
The first method will leave them listless 


“ Apt to Teach” 99 


and indifferent. The second method will 
awake their interest, and their minds will 
be all alert. The third method will in- 
tensify their inquisitiveness, and awake 
their wonder. The fourth method, the 
presentation of a living man in whom the 
truth is incarnate, say the grace of courage, 
will make their souls bend in reverence, 
and in appropriating homage and love. 

Do I as a teacher incarnate my message ? 
Have Ilivedit? Can I say to the children : 
“Come hither, and I will declare what 
the Lord hath done for my soul.” It is 
the personal element in the teachings 
of the Apostle Paul that makes his teach- 
ing so overwhelmingly forceful. Even in 
the most argumentative and controversial 
epistle the personal experience is obtruded 
in defence and confirmation of the truth. 
He has a mighty sense of redemption, 
and he has an equally profound sense 
of the all-prevailing presence and tender- 
ness of God. It is no wonder that there 
emerges from this man’s life such a con- 
fident “I know!” That is the tone 


100 Thairsting for the Springs 


of the real teacher. Can I speak with 
such assurance? Have I any experience 
to corroborate my evangel? What can 
I tell the scholars about the forgiveness 
of sms? What do I know about it? 
What can I tell them about the surrender 
of the will, of the holy fellowship of prayer, 
and the power of the Spirit as He operates 
in the strong control of the life. What 
can I tell them about “the joy of the 
Lord,” and the “peace that passeth 
understanding ?”” Anyone who is to be 
“apt to teach”? must have a life which 
illustrates his own message. 


Ill. THE TEACHER MUST HAVE A MISSION. 

What is this mission? When I go to 
my class, what is my aim? Is my purpose 
as clear as a bell? The common reply 
would be: “My purpose is to bring the 
scholars to Jesus, to incline them to give 
their hearts to Him.” But have we a 
clear conception of the meaning of these 
words, or is our purpose lost in apparent 
vagueness? I listened to a Christian 


“ Apt to Teach” 101 


worker who had been taking part in a 
certain service for children, and he ex- 
ultantly expressed himself in this way: 
““We had a grand time, the children were 
crying all over the room.” That may 
not be an issue of which to make much 
boast. I am not quite sure that we need 
make little children cry. I want them 
to fall in love with Christ, and to fall in 
love is to leap into joy, and laughter 
will be a finer expression than tears. We 
want some clear thinking about this matter 
of bringing children to Christ. I would 
that all our teachers had some elementary 
system of psychology. We need to know 
something about the constituents of the 
inner life, and especially about the workings 
of the will. The laying down of the will 
is the secret of Christian discipleship, and 
will inevitably issue in eternal glory. 

For the adequate discharge of this 
mission the teacher needs three things. 
He needs thought. For effective teaching 
we require hard, honest thinking. Teachers 
never had more helps than they have to- 


102 Thirsting for the Springs 


day. Can we add to this that they were 
never more thoughtful? I am sometimes 
afraid that the multitudinous helps are 
crushing the individuality out of our 
teachers, that we are losing the worth 
of their original endowment. Our teachers 
ought to be as distinct in their individualities 
as the violin, trumpet, and harp. Let 
our teachers use their helps as material 
for thought, and not as substitutes for it. 
Then the teacher needs force. All the 
current of the life must set in one direc- 
tion. Teaching, like preaching, should 
be not only a work, but a hobby; 
not only a sacrifice, but a delight. If 
there be no joy in the teaching, the speech 
will be forceless, and forceless speech is 
of all things most impotent. In the life 
of the successful teacher all the little 
tributaries of his days are made to con- 
verge in his one supreme and central 
purpose. Then, finally, the teacher needs 
persuasiveness. For an interpretation of 
this word we can go back to the lovely 
dispositions which surround my text, the 


“ Apt to Teach” 103 


twin graces of gentleness and patience. 
These two words, “ gentle ” and “ patience,” 
almost describe the characteristics of an 
angler. How patient is the angler in 
studying the river and the fish, and how 
exquisitely gentle is his throw! Both 
elements are needed in the constitution 
of the ideal teacher. He must be gentle, 
genial, wooing; and he must be patient, 
holding out through long seasons, and never 


yielding to despair. 





LOVING THE ENEMY 


Text: “ Love your enemies, and do them good, 
and lend, never despairing ; and your reward shall be 
great, and ye shall be sons of the most High.’’—Luke 6 : 
35. 

“LOVE YOUR ENEMIES.” 

Tuts searching counsel describes a certain 
pose or posture of the soul. The exposure 
of a greenhouse is vital and determinative 
of the quantity and quality of the flowers 
and fruits. It is even so with the attitude 
of the soul. Its finished issues are deter- 
mined by its pose. Dispositions are just 
the poses of the soul. A soul in the attitude 
of prejudice is disinclined to the light. A 
soul in the attitude of jealousy presents 
a front of unkindly suspicion. A soul 
in the attitude of hatred bristles with 
perpetual antagonisms. Love is likewise 
an attitude of the soul, and is significant 
of a certain prominent temper in the life. 

Love 1s the attitude of wooing. Love 
seeks to convert the hostile forces into a 


friendly power. Love is a seeker, that it 
105 


106  —‘ Thirsting for the Springs 


may be a winner. Its aim is to transform 
the unfriendly sword into a friendly plough- 
share. It therefore seeks the conversion 
of force. Love is that temper of the soul 
which seeks to change alienation into 
intimate fellowship. This pose or temper 
of the soul can only be acquired in the 
atmosphere of prayer. It is in the ministry 
of prayer that the crooked become straight. 
If we entertain feelings of perilous hatred 
against another, let us force ourselves in- 
to the presence of God, and in that all- 
corrective Presence the foul inclination 
will be changed, and the posture of the 
soul will be transformed into the forgiving 
attitude of God. Love your enemies. 

Love is the instrument of knowing. We 
can have no real knowledge of our enemy 
if we are destitute of love. Love is the 
posture in which vision becomes possible. 
It is through love that we have discern- 
ment and knowledge. If a man say, “I 
know my brother,” and he loves him not, his 
knowledge is only pretence. To see anybody 
aright we require a disposition of love. 


Loving the Enemy 107 


Love reflects the disposition of God. If 
I may say it reverently, to love an enemy 
is the very pose of our God. “ While 
we were yet sinners Christ died.” “ When 
Wwe were enemies we were reconciled.” 
God is well disposed towards us and all 
men. “I know the thoughts that I have 
towards you, thoughts of peace, and not 
of evil.” To let the mind dwell upon the 
disposition of God is to unconsciously 
acquire His pose. It always helps us to 
be well disposed towards anybody when 
somebody wlom we love is well disposed 
towards them. The attitude of the one 
we love imperceptibly fashions our own. 
Because God loves His enemies, we shall 
find it possible to love ours. “ We love 
because He first loved us.” 


““aND DO THEM GOOD.” 

The posture of love will inevitably issue 
in the doing of good. Let me put three 
words together, which, in their order, 
suggest a sequence of actual life. Bene- 
volence, Benediction, Benefaction! Bene- 


108 Thirsting for the Springs 


volence is the pose of love. To be bene- 
volent is to be well-disposed, to be will- 
disposed. To be benevolent is to have 
the kindly inclination to woo and to win 
even our fiercest foe. Benevolence will 
issue in benediction. Benediction is bene- 
volence expressed in speech. Our diction 
will be ordered and chastened by our 
benevolence. Unkindly criticism will be 
checked. Contempt will be changed into 
eulogy. The art of fault-finding, will be 
changed into the ministry of grace-finding. 
Malediction becomes benediction. Bene- 
volence will also express itself in benefac- 
tion. Benefaction is benevolence expressed 
in service. It is love testifying to itself 
in gracious service. In what kind of bene- 
factions does love express itself? I cannot 
tell you. Love will discover its own minis- 
try. “If thine enemy hunger, feed him.” 
Love will discover what the enemy’s 
hungers are. Love will interpret and 
supply the enemy’s lacks and gaps. It 
may not be the hunger for bread. It may 
be the hunger for comfort and cheer. 


Loving the Enemy 109 


Whatever the hunger may be, “ God shall 
reveal that unto you.” “ Do them good.” 
Kill the enemy by unfailing kindness. 


“AND LEND, NEVER DESPAIRING.”’ 

“And lend.” I cannot limit the in- 
terpretation of this word to the mere con- 
tent of money. Love is self-impartation, 
and with self we give all things. Lend to 
the enemy! Let our your substance, your 
possessions: make use of everything that 
you may woo and win him. Be liberal in 
thought, in sympathy, in labours, in prayer. 
Bleed freely, that by the power of the 
sacrifice he may be allured into communion. 
“ Lend, never despairing.” Never say, “I 
have prayed so long for the enemy, and he 
is as unfriendly as ever. I shall attempt 
the insuperable task no more.” ‘That is 
the very opposite to the course of much- 
enduring love. There are some phrases 
which love never uses, and I think they 
ought never to pass over Christian lips. 
Here are one or two :—“ A hopeless case ”’ ; 
“Too far gone” ; “A bad job.” The 


110 Thirsting for the Springs 


despair which is expressed in these phrases 
ought never to find entrance into the hearts 
of the disciples of Christ. We never know 
just how near we are to victory. The chair- 
man of one of our great mining companies 
was telling us a little while ago how very 
near they were to overlooking the wealth 
of a great estate. They had been working 
for a long period, and the labour appeared 
to be absolutely fruitless, and one day, 
when the purpose to cease work was almost 
ripe, and the settlement was to be left as 
quite a hopeless sphere, the manager was at 
the facings, speaking to one of the work- 
men, and idly playing with the facing with 
his walking-stick, when a small quantity of 
the soil tumbled down, and lo! the long- 
sought-for vein was discovered. They were 
purposing relinquishing the labour when 
the gold was only a hand’s breadth away. 
This is even so in the searching for souls. 
When the work appears hopeless, we may 
be within an inch of victory. One more 
try, and we may be at the gold. “Lend, 


never despairing.” 


Loving the Enemy 111 


“AND YOUR REWARD SHALL BE GREAT.” 

To some extent love enshrines its own 
reward. Even when love is wounded, we 
would not lose our love to escape the pain. 
If a mother have daily agony because of 
her wayward son, if the love she bears him 
brings her constant sorrow she would not 
be willing to lose her love that she might 
escape the grief. No mother would have 
the nerve of love deadened in order that 
her sensitiveness might be benumbed. No, 
there is something in love itself which has 
its own reward. But, beyond this, to love 
an enemy brings to man the reward of 
fellowship with God. “Everyone that 
loveth . . . knoweth God.” We “ walk 
together ” because we are “ agreed.” And 
beyond all this, to love the enemy brings to 
the lover a spiritual transformation. “ Ye 
shall be sons of the most High.” Our 
character is to be elevated and sublimed. 
Our sonship is to be worthy of the father. 
The child is to be glorified. We are to 
“awake in His likeness.” 





MY SHIELD AND MY GLORY 


Text: “ But Thou, O Lord, art a shield for me; 
my glory, and the lifter up of mine head. . . . I laid 
me down and slept ; I awaked ; for the Lord sustained 
me.”’—Psalm 3: 3, 5. 


TuaT is a sweet and heartening song, and 
the song is all the sweeter when we note 
the estate of the songster. Some circum- 
stances set the sweetness of music in pro- 
nounced relief. The thrush pouring out 
its varied note amid the sweet, fresh leafage 
of the luxuriant spring, does not arrest us 
like the robin warbling its cheery note 
from leafless trees in the depths of a winter’s 
day. The music of village bells is never 
more fascinating than when it sounds 
through the interludes in a night of storm. 
I stood in delight as I listened to a choir on 
the summit of the Rigi singing “ All things 
praise Thee, Lord most high”; but delight 
passed into still wonder when, outside a 
dreary little cottage in a dull and dingy 
5 113 


114 Thirsting for the Springs , 


street, I heard the strain, “My God, I 
thank Thee who hath made the earth so 
bright!” It is the song that rises out of 
dreariness that exercises such a fascinating 
ministry. “At midnight Paul and Silas 
prayed and sang praises unto God, and the 
prisoners heard them.” And here is the 
singer of this Psalm, not dwelling in luxuri- 
ous ease, in the inspiring warmth of a 
glorious summer; with him it is winter- 
time, and it is night; yet out of the winter 
and the night, there rises the jubilant strain 
of this triumphant trust in God. 

Let us look at the “ outside ” of his life. 
‘““How are they increased that trouble 
me!” His external comfort was disturbed. 
‘Many are they that rise up against me.” 
His legitimate progress was checked. 
“* Many there be that say of my soul, there 
is no help for him in God.” His piety was 
questioned, and his fellowship with the 
Divine was denied. Now, put all these 
together. Here is a man surrounded by 
multiplied annoyances, encountering barriers 
that are everywhere reared to prevent him 


My Shield and my Glory 115 


grasping his legitimate rights, his piety 
denounced as impiety, and his spiritual 
companionship proclaimed as a pretence! 
He is denied the need of physical comfort, 
the taste of worldly success, and the luxury 
of human regard. Man fails him! How 
then? He retired more entirely upon God. 
In God he found that which transcended 
comfort, he found peace; in God he found 
that which transcended success, he found 
glory. In God he found that which trans- 
cended human regard, he found the 
approbation of the Divine. 


“THOU, O LORD, ART A SHIELD FOR ME.” 

It is a beautiful figure this figure of the 
shield! It suggests the all-sufficient pro- 
tection which comes from the companion- 
ship of God. The Lord will be to him a 
shield against the foe without. The Lord 
will not permit my external circumstances 
to injure my spirit. The world will not be 
permitted to pass beyond its threats. The 
hostility of my surroundings shall not 
hinder my spiritual growth. My gardener 


116 Thirsting for the Springs 


said to me two or three weeks ago: “I 
have got some shoots in the frame, we must 
have them covered up before the winter 
comes.” And now the gardener has sup- 
plied the shield, and the tender shoots 
are growing in spite of the unfriendly air 
without. And there are young shoots in 
the life, the tender growths of faith, and 
hope, and love. And in my external life 
there is often a winter of failure and ad- 
versity, and human malice and contempt. 
The Lord will defend the young shoots. 
He will be “a shield for me.” But the 
Lord will also be a shield against the foe 
within. When the circumstances are un- 
friendly, man is apt to become embittered. 
The hostility may nourish revenge. Failure 
may make a cynic. The winter time may 
breed envy, malice and uncharitableness. 
I need some defence against these foes 
within. “Man needs re-enforcing against 
his worse self.” This re-enforcement I 
obtain from my God. But then I claim 
all real protections as the ministry of the 
King. Anything which shelters me from 


My Shield and my Glory 117 


the enemy is the armour of God. “The 
shields of the earth belong to God” (Ps. 
xlvii. 9). We claim them all. If good 
literature is a fine protection against vice, 
we claim it as one of the Lord’s shields. 
And so with art and music, and all re- 
creation and pleasure which ward off the 
approaches of the devil. They are King’s 
shields, the gift of His grace for the pro- 
tection of His children. 


“THOU, O LORD, ART MY GLORY.” 

In the approbation of God, I find my 
honour. The light of God’s countenance 
eclipses all the dazzling tinsel of worldly 
fame. The crown that man can give me, 
man can take away. I hold my human 
glory at the bidding of human caprice. 
There are no crowns like God’s crowns, 
and His crowns are worn, not as external 
dignities, but as spiritual dignities which 
adorn the soul. He gives to me “the 
Crown of Life.” Every faculty in my being 
shines in the abundance of life. No power 
is dull and dead. Everything is bright 


118 Thirsting for the Springs 


and living, glorious with the crown of life. 
“Thou, O Lord, art my glory.” 


“THOU, O LORD, ART THE LIFTER UP 
OF MINE HEAD.” 

The failures of men, the many obstacles 
they have to encounter, and especially the 
malice and contempt of their fellows, might 
humiliate them, and cause them to hang 
their heads in confusion of face. The man 
whose external life passes from defeat to 
defeat, and who never sits down at the 
festival of success, is apt to acquire the 
attitude of severe depression. “ But Thou, 
O Lord, art the lifter up of mine head.” 
The Lord’s companionship is my pride and 
my boast. The sublimity of man’s sur- 
roundings often gives a loftiness to his 
bearing. A man who companions much 
with kings may unconsciously gain the 
kingly carriage. How, then, must it be 
with men who companion with the Al- 
mighty, and who find in Him their shield 
and their glory? It is a simple fact, that 
the intimate companions of the Lord are 


My Shield and my Glory 119 


characterised by a certain stately dignity, 
which is never so manifest as when they 
are in the minority, and are compelled to 
stand alone. God is “ the lifter up of their 
head.” Isit any wonder that these wealthy 
conceptions of God should be accompanied 
by the inspiration of glad and ceaseless 
communion? Men were unfriendly; cir- 
cumstances were unsympathetic; this man 
** cried unto the Lord, and He heard him.”’ 
There was a constant festival of fellowship, 
a fruitful responsiveness between man and 
his God. 

“I laid me down and slept; I waked; 
for the Lord sustained me.” 

Contrast the calmness of these words 
with the tumult of the opening of the Psalm. 
The Psalmist is proclaiming the secret of 
peace. 

There is no peace like the peace of the 
man who loves to lie down at night with the 
thought of God possessing his mind and 
heart. Happy the man who delights to 
recall the thought of God before he sinks 
into slumber ! 


120 — Thirsting for the Springs 


“‘ Be my last thought how sweet to rest 
For ever on my Saviour’s breast.” 


There is no peace like the peace of a man 
who, when he awakes in the morning, gives 
first welcome to the thought of God. 


** Fairer than the morning, lovelier than the daylight, 
Dawns the sweet consciousness, I am with thee.” 


The man who finds in God his shield, 
who seeks in Him his glory, and who makes 
in Him his boast, will have mornings of joy, 
and evening times of light. 


FROM BONDAGE TO FREEDOM 
Text: Psalm 32: 1-5. 


Martin LutHeR was once asked which 
were his favourite Psalms. He replied, 
“The Pauline Psalms.” On being asked 
to state more particularly to which he re- 
ferred, he mentioned the 32nd, 51st, 130th, 
and the 143rd. It is not difficult for 
anyone who knows the Apostle’s thought 
to discover phrases in these Psalms 
which might fittingly be placed in the 
Epistle to the Romans. “ According to 
Thy tender mercies blot out my trans- 
gressions.” “With the Lord there is 
mercy, and with Him there is plenteous 
redemption.” “ Enter not into judgment 
with Thy servant, for in Thy sight shall 
no flesh living be justified.” All these 
phrases are characterised by Pauline 
intensity, and they have the peculiar 
flavour of the Apostle’s thought and in- 
spiration. But perhaps no Psalm is more 


121 


122 Thirsting for the Springs 


Pauline than the Psalm whose early passages 
I wish to attempt to expound. Augustine 
used to read the Psalm with weeping heart, 
and before his death he had it written 
on the wall over his sick-bed, “‘ that he 
might exercise himself therein, and find 
comfort therein in his sickness.” 

What is the evangel of the Psalm? 
_ It proclaims the blessedness of forgiveness. 
Here is a man burdened with the vivid 
consciousness of personal sin. His sin 
is to him no vague, disturbing presence, 
filling him with undefined unrest. His 
sin stands out before him, bold and clearly 
characterised. Mark the wealth of the 
vocabulary which he employs to describe 
it. He uses three words, and each word 
reveals a different aspect of his compre- 
hensive conception. He calls it his “ trans- 
gression.” The word is significant of a 
“ breaking-loose.” The figure is almost 
that of a horse that has broken the traces, 
and is bolting. The cords have been 
snapped. The yoke has been thrown 
aside. The man conceives himself as in 
revolt. He is a rebel, a deserter. He has 


From Bondage to Freedom 123 


broken the bands; he has discarded all 
discipline, and has roamed in ways of 
unconsidered licence. He also calls it his 
“sin.” He has deflected from the pre- 
scribed line of life. He has chosen his 
own end. He has missed the mark. His 
life “ has not arrived.” It is characterised 
by failure. He also calls it his “ iniquity.” 
His life is marred by crookedness and de- 
formity. Guilt has sunk into his faculties, 
and all of them have been twisted in 
a certain perversity. Such is the man’s 
vivid consciousness of his own estate. 
He is a rebel of perverse inclinations, 
apd wrenched by self-will into spiritual 
deformity. 

Now, concerning this burning con- 
sciousness of personal sin, we are told 
the man “kept silence.” He permitted 
no one to share his knowledge. He took 
no one into his confidence. He invited 
no fellowship, either on the part of man 
or of God. He shut the fire up in his 
own life, and “kept silence.” How did 
such secret, silent burden affect the man’s 
life? ‘When I kept silence my bones 


124 Thirsting for the Springs 


waxed old through my roaring all the 
day long.” The burden registered its 
presence in a wearied body. The secret 
moan resulted in aching bones. There 
is a wonderful intimacy between the flesh 
and the spirit. To sap the forces of the 
one drains the energy of the other. We 
see a man looking haggard and worn, and 
we say, “That man has got something 
on his mind.” ‘The burden in the con- 
sciousness reveals itself in the weakness 
and pallor of the flesh. This man, with 
the secret, unspoken consciousness of sin, 
dragged along a wearied body. He was 
continually tired. But he was not only 
burdened by physical weariness, he was 
also a victim of mental depression. “ Day 
and night Thy hand was heavy upon me.” 
He moved in a condition of constant 
depression. He felt as if he was weighed 
down. There was no lightness about his 
thought, no buoyancy, no soaring power. 
He could not get away from the burden 
“day nor night.” He felt that “ the hand 
of the Lord” was weighing upon him! 
That is a pathetic word. “The hand 


From Bondage to Freedom 125 


of the Lord” is usually a minister of 
succour, of lifting, of resurrection! But 
here the “hand of the Lord” is regarded 
as the minister of depression, and the 
man is held down in mental flatness and 
imprisonment. But the issues of uncon- 


_ fessed sin are not exhausted in effects 


upon the body and the mind. “ My mois- 
ture is turned into drought of summer.” 
He was the victim of a dry, fierce heat! 
No cool, cooling influences breathed 
through his soul. He was “heated hot 
with burning fears.” He was possessed 
by spiritual feverishness. He was dis- 
quieted and filled with unrest. He was 
touchy and irritable with morbid sensitive- 
ness, a sensitiveness that converted trifles 
into ministers of crucifixion. Such is the 
oppressive and all-consuming burden of 
secret and unacknowledged sin. 

And now this weary, burdened, feverish 
soul turns his eyes toward the face of 
God. He is inclined to open his life to 
the Father. He “takes it to the Lord 
in prayer.” He will tell God all about 
it. How ample and all-conclusive is the 


126 Thirsting for the Springs 


telling! The Psalmist had a three-fold 
description of sin, now he has a three- 
fold description of its confession. “I 
acknowledged my sin.” “ Mine iniquity 
have I not hid.” “I confessed my trans- 
gressions.” The marrow of all these 
pregnant phrases is that the Psalmist 
made a clean breast of it. He hid nothing 
from the Lord. There was no unclean 
thing concealed within his tent. He 
opened out every secret room. He gave 
God all the keys. Everything was brought 
out and penitently acknowledged. He con- 
fessed in particulars, and not in generals. 
He “poured out his heart before God.” 
He emptied it as though he was empty- 
ing a vessel in which no single unclean 
drop was allowed to remain. His con- 
fession was made in perfect frankness 
and sincerity. “In his spirit there was 
no guile.” There was nothing tricky 
or underhand in the acknowledgment. 
Everything was opened, and tearfully 
revealed. 

What was the outcome of the confession ? 
The Psalmist has given us a three-fold 


From Bondage to Freedom 127 


word for his burden. He has given us 
a three-fold word for his confession. Now 
he gives us a three-fold word to describe 
the Lord’s response. His transgression 
was forgiven. It was lifted and carried 
away out of sight. The poor, burdened, 
wearied deserter brought his heavy load 
to the Lord, and it was lifted clean away. 
‘“* He bare the sin of many.” Oh, the sense 
of relief when we have been carrying a 
heavy load upon our shoulders, and at 
length it is lifted away! How we stretch 
ourselves in welcome freedom! How in- 
finitely more so when the burden is lifted 
from the heart! “Come unto Me, all 
ye that labour and are heavy laden, and 
I will give you rest.” But the Psalmist 
uses a second word to describe his emanci- 
pation. His sin was covered. I am familiar 
with that scriptural figure. It meets us 
again and again in the Word of God. 
“Thou coverest it with the deep.” That 
is the kind of covering accomplished by 
our God. He puts an ocean over our 
sin! “ Where sin abounds, grace doth 
much more abound.” Grace rolls over 


128 Thirsting for the Springs 


like an immeasurable flood, and our sins 
are submerged beneath its mighty depths. 
Our sin is covered. We who have seen 
the Master know how that gracious cover- 
ing has become ours. It is ours in Christ 
Jesus our Lord. “ He is our righteousness.” 
“He shall cover thee with the robe of 
righteousness.” A third word the Psalmist 
uses to describe his deliverance: “ The 
Lord imputeth not iniquity.” Forgiven 
sins are never to be counted; they will 
not enter into the reckoning. They will 
not influence the Lord’s regard for us. 
In His love for us, forgiven sins are as 
though they had never been. Here, then, 
is the completeness of the freedom of 
the children of God. Sin forgiven! Sin 
covered! Sin no longer reckoned! It is 
not wonderful that this once tried, de- 
pressed, feverish soul, tasting now the 
delights of a gracious freedom, should 
cry out, “Blessed is the man!” “The 
winter is passed, and the time of the 
singing of birds is come.” 


# 


t 


PERILOUS COMPROMISE 


Text: “ Be not righteous overmuch.”—Kcclesiastes 
7: 16. 


TuaT is most soothing and comforting 
€ounsel for the indolent soul. The un- 
redeemed man instinctively shrinks from 
the pure and shining ideal, He recoils 
from standards that are too exacting. 
He prefers an easier servitude, a loose- 
jacket kind of restraint. How few of us 
like to hear the trumpet-call which bids 
us “stand upon the mount before the 
Lord!” We like to “ measure ourselves 
by ourselves.” So the counsel of the text 
is by no means unpalatable and unwelcome. 
“Be not righteous overmuch.” What an 
easy yoke! How mild the requirements ! 
How delightfully lax the discipline? Why, 
the school is just a playground ! 

Have we any analogous counsel in our 
own day? In what modern guise does 
it appear? Here is a familiar phrase :— 

129 


I 


130 Thirsting for the Springs 


‘“* We can have too much of a good thing.” 
To appreciate honey we must not live on 
it. We must have a varied diet. ‘“ Hast 
thou found honey? eat so much as is 
sufficient for thee lest thou be filled there- 
with.” Restraint is part of the ministry 
of appreciation. We can sicken the 
appetite and make it loathe the thing it 
loved. ““We can have too much of a 
good thing.” Such is the general applica- 
tion of the proverb. But the word is 
stretched out to include the sphere of 
religion. The counsel runs somewhat in 
this wise; we require a little religion if 
we would drink the nectar of the world, 
and we require a little worldliness if we 
would really appreciate the flavour of re- 
ligion. To put the counsel baldly, we need 
a little devilry to make life spicy. That 
is one modern shape of the old counsel. 
Here is the old counsel in another 
dress :—‘‘ We must wink at many things.” 
We must not be too exactingly scrupulous. 
If we would be comfortable, we must 
acquire the habit of winking at many 


Perilous Compromise 131 


things as we walk along the changing way. 
We must cultivate the art of closing the 
eye at the needful place. That is the way 
to march through life easily, attended 
by welcome comforts. Don’t be too par- 
ticular; “‘ Be not righteous overmuch.” 
Here is a third dress in which the 
old counsel appears in modern times :— 
“In Rome, one must do as Rome does.” 
Our company must determine our moral 
attire. We must have the adaptability 
of a chameleon. If we are abstainers, 
don’t let us take our scrupulosity into 
festive and convivial gatherings. Don’t 
let us throw wet blankets over the genial 
crowd. If some particular expedient, 
some rather shaky policy be prevalent 
in your own line of business, do not stand 
out an uritating exception. “In Rome 
do as Rome does.” If you are in company 
where the venerable is treated with laughter, 
join in the derision. Do not startle your 
fellowmen by eccentric conduct. Do not 
chill the riotous conversation by any freezing 
silence. “ Be not righteous overmuch.” 


132 Thirsting for the Springs 


Now let us pass from the Book of 
Ecclesiastes to another part of the sacred 
Word, and listen to a voice from a higher 
sphere. What says Ecclesiastes? “Be 
not righteous overmuch.” What says 
the Prophet Isaiah? “Your wine is 
mixed with water.” The prophet is pro- 
claiming the angry condemnatory word of 
the Eternal God. “ Your wine is mixed 
with water.” The people had been carry- 
ing out the counsel of Koheleth. They 
had been diluting their righteousness. 
They had been putting a little water 
into their wine. The prophet proclaims 
that God will not accept any dilutions. 
He will not accept a religion that is 
watered down. He despises a devotion 
which has been thinned into compromise. 
Wine represents blood. Blood represents 
sacrifice. To water the wine is to thin 
the sacrifice, and to impoverish it. It 
is to make the surrender imperfect. It 
is to give with one hand and to withhold 
with the other. It is a religion without 
strong piquant taste and flavour. It is 


Perilous Compromise 133 


a piety whose movement is almost im- 
perceptible. “ Your wine is mixed with 
water,’ and the Almighty God despises 
the impious concoction. 

In many parts of the Old Testament 
this perilous compromise is condemned. 
““'They have given their tears to the altar, 
and have married the daughter of a strange 
god.” “*'They feared the Lord and served 
their own gods.” This is the type of broken 
fellowship and of impaired devotion against 
which the prophets of the Old Testament 
direct their severest indictments. 

Let us pass on now to the day when the 
light is come, and the “ glory of the Lord ” 
is risen upon us. Let us hear the counsel 
and command of “the Word made flesh.” 
“‘Be ye perfect”; that is the injunction 
of the Master. We are to carry the refin- 
ing and perfecting influences of religion 
into everything. Everywhere it is to be 
pervasive of life, as the blood is pervasive 
of the flesh. This is the doctrine of 
entire sanctification. Our piety is to be 
ubiquitous. We are to sanctify the 


134 Thirsting for the Springs 


scruple. Just as we can magnetise the 
point of a needle, and endow it with 
powers of mystic allurement, so the trifl- 
ing things of life—the needle-points—are 
to be converted into mystic magnets filled 
with the power of the Holy Ghost. Every- 
thing in our life is to constitute an allure- 
ment to help to draw the world to the 
feet of the risen Lord. This all-pervasive 
religion, this non-compromising religion is 
the only one that discovers the thousand 
secret sweets that are yielded by the Hill 
of Zion. It is the only religion that 
presses the juice out of the grapes of life, 
and drinks the precious essences which 
God hath prepared for them that love 
Him. Let there be no mistake about this. 
Religious compromise never gets beyond 
the husks. It is the man of entire sancti- 
fication who draws into his life the infinitely 
varied treasures of the crowded way. Life 
to him is no lottery; there are no empty 
packets. Every experience deposits its 
wealth. For him “to live is Christ!” 
“Be not righteous overmuch”; that 


Perilous Compromise 135 


counsel never leads a man to the Springs. 
“Be ye perfect”; that is the counsel 
which, though it entail ceaseless labour, 
converts life into a continual song. “Be 
ye perfect *’; sanctify the entire round, 
never be off duty, and life will become an 
apocalypse of ever-heightening and ever- 


brightening glory. 





TO KNOW JESUS! 


Text: “ This is life eternal, that they might know 
Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou 
hast sent.”—John 17: 3. 


“ 'Turs is life eternal” . . . to know Jesus. 
Do I know Jesus? Then I have eternal 
life. How tremendously profound must be 
the significance of this word “know”! 
What rich and vital content it must possess ! 
We oiten profess to have knowledge which 
yet has no perceptible influence upon life. 
Our supposed knowledge of men has often 
no appreciable effect even in shaping our 
conduct, not to name the deeper result of 
determining our character. But here, in 
my text, knowledge implies life: nay, it is 
. life! ‘“* This is life eternal, to know Jesus.” 
You cannot have one without the other. 
This knowledge is not a separate or separ- 
able quantity, which at our pleasure we can 
isolate, and consider apart from life. Here, 
at any rate, knowing is inseparable from 
137 


138 Thirsting for the Springs 


living, living is inseparable from knowing. 
To know Jesus is to live Jesus. “ This is 
life’ ; to know is to live. 

Let us note, then, that in the Christian 
Scriptures the word “know” has a far 
deeper significance than it receives in 
common life. In human relationships an 
introduction to another person appears to 
entitle us to claim that we know him. 
A nodding acquaintance in the street 
appears to establish a similar claim. “Do 
you know So-and-so?” “Yes; I met him 
at a friend’s house for a few minutes a year 
ago.” This kind of knowledge has little 
or no significance. It has no content. 
It is a mere superficies, a thing without 
depth. It is not implicated with anything 
vital. We might lose it, and its absence 
would in no wise impair the volume or 
quality of our personal life. Such know-_ 
ledge and such life are in separate com- 
partments, and have no more relationship 
than exists between the first and third class 
passengers in an ordinary train. Anyone 
who approaches the New Testament must 


To Know Jesus! 139 


leave that conception of knowledge far be- 
hind if he would enter into the interpreta- 
tion of the truths and means of grace. For 
the peril abounds that men and women do 
take the shallow speech of the world, with 
all its impoverished content, and use it as 
their measure for the profound and sublime 
speech of the Bible. I sometimes wince 
at the almost careless way in which the 
question is frequently asked, ““ Do you know 
Jesus ?’—and at the almost flippant affir- 
mative in which it is frequently answered. 
It is too frequently the speech of the 
street, the recognition of the common nod, 
which is suggested, and not the vital far- 
reaching speech of the Son of God. Let 
us use a great word greatly, and settle 
with ourselves that this word “know” 
is marvellously deep, and that no man 
has ever touched the bottom. 

“To know Jesus ”—what does it mean ? 
Here is a guiding word from the Apostle 
John: “ He that saith, I know Him, and 
keepeth not His commandments, is a liar.” 
Then how many of us know Him? “He 


140 Thirsting for the Springs 


that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not 
. .. Then knowledge implies obedience. 
There can be no knowledge of Christ with- 
out obedience. Without obedience we may 
have a few ideas about Him, but we do not 
know Him. If we are destitute of obedi- 
ence, then that which we assume to be 
knowledge is no knowledge at all, and we 
must give it another name. Obedience 
is essential. What is obedience? Con- 
fining our inquiry strictly to the human 
plane, what is essentially implied in obedi- 
ence? When one man obeys another it is 
implied that he subjects his will to the will 
of the other, and works in harmony with its 
demands. The oarsmen in our University 
boats have to subject their wills to the will 
of the strokesman, whose stroke determines 
and controls the rest. The oarsmen have 
but one will. That is obedience, a will 
attuned to the will of another, and without 
that attuning of the will no knowledge of 
Christ can ever be gained. “He that 
saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His 
commandments, is a liar, and the truth is 
not in him.” 


To Know Jesus! 141 


Let us proceed a step further, and again 
under the guidance of the Apostle John. 
“ He that loveth not, knoweth not God.” 
Then how many of us know Him? No 
love: no knowledge! May we not slightly 
alter the former word of the Apostle, and 
read it thus—“ He that saith, I know Him, 
and loveth not, is a liar.” It would be just 
as reasonable for a man without eyes to 
claim he sees the stars, as for a man without 
love to claim he knows the Lord. Without 
love we cannot know Christ. What is love ? 
It is indefinable, as indefinable as fragrance 
or light. Our descriptive words at the best 
are only vague and remote. But we cannot 
define a sentiment, we can sometimes suggest 
it by its effects, and this will suffice for our 
immediate purpose. Love is “good-will 
toward men.” Observe, good will towards 
men, not merely good wish; willing good, 
not only wishing it! To wish a thing and 
to will it, may be quite two different things. 
Wishing may be only a sweet and transient 
sentiment; willing implies effort, active 
and persistent work. Wishing dreams; 
willing creates. Love is good-will, the 


142 Thirsting for the Springs 


willing of good toward all men, the effort 
to think the best of all men, and to help 
them on to the best. That is love. “He 
that loveth not . . . knoweth not God.” 
Then good-will is essential to knowledge of 
God; without it knowledge can never be. 
Now gather the argument together. No 
obedience, no knowledge! No love, no 
knowledge! To know Jesus, I must obey ; 
to know Jesus, I must love. Therefore 
knowledge implies a certain relationship 
God-ward, and a certain relationship man- 
ward. I am to have a will that seeks the 
doing of His commandments; I am to 
have a disposition that seeks the good 
of all His children. All this is included in 
this most vital and pregnant word, “to 
know Christ.” 

Let us advance a further step. Habits 
are formed by repetition of acts. Much 
repetition creates what we very expressively 
call “‘ second nature.” As if the first nature 
had passed away, and we had acquired 
another! That which was at first almost 
unnatural, has now become quite natural. 
It began in discomfort; it ended in ease. 


To Know Jesus! 143 


Take the habit of walking. It began in 
great uncertainties. It was natural to 
creep; to walk was a task. But repetition 
of effort created the power of poise. The 
repetition of difficult acts resulted in fixed 
habits, and now we walk as easily and as 
unconsciously as we breathe. It has be- 
come our nature. That which begins in 
careful and almost painful thoughtfulness 
becomes at last a spontaneous and un- 
conscious habit. Take the habit of reading. 
In our early stages a printed page was a 
very irregular country. We could not 
travel far without coming to apparently 
insuperable hills. Every letter was a con- 
scious quantity, every word was regarded 
with curious suspicion. But repetition of 
effort induced a habit, and now we can read 
a page of print and not be conscious of the 
presence of a single letter, so absorbed are 
we in the mystic thought behind. Reading 
has become natural; that is to say, it has 
become a spontaneous and unconscious 
habit. Now, lift up the argument, for 
here, at any rate, natural law prevails in 
the spiritual world. In the spiritual world 


144 Thirsting for the Springs 


repetition of acts creates spontaneous habit. 
It is possible to so persistently subject the 
will to the will of Christ, that the subjection 
becomes an unconscious habit. We can so 
repeatedly bend our wills to His, that the 
inclination becomes perfectly natural—the 
supernatural becomes natural—and we do 
it as if by instinct. It is possible to do the 
will of Christ as naturally as we breathe. 
That is a tremendous ideal, but I am 
set to preach ideals. There is more than 
enough of low compromise round about us. 
It is well to lift our eyes to the hills, and 
this is one of the great heights, that a man 
can so persistently and determinedly bend 
his will to the Christ’s that the inclination 
becomes permanent and natural, and he at 
last does unconsciously what at first was 
a heavy task. As for the other element 
in the content of knowledge, the willing of 
good to my fellows, the same great law 
prevails. If I determinedly and repeatedly 
will good to my fellows; if in learning the 
gracious art I am as painstaking as in the 
cultivation of any other habit, then the 
willing of good shall become a permanent 


To Know Jesus! 145 


disposition, a spontaneous habit, a fruitful 
instinct in my common life. Now again 
gather up the argument. To know Christ, 
I must obey, and obedience can become 
a spontaneous habit. To know Christ, I 
must love, and loving can become a spon- 
taneous habit. To know Christ, I must 
will as Christ wills. To know Christ, I 
must love as Christ loves. To know Christ, 
I musi have the habit of His willing and His 
loving. To know Christ, I must have the 
habits of Christ. And what is this but to 
say that to know Christ I must be like Him? 

So are we driven a further step on to- 
wards our conclusion. The principle arrived 
at is this, that knowledge necessitates like- 
ness. Have we not abundant proof of its 
truth? Two unlikes cannot know each 
other. Two men who are morally unlike 
each other may live together, and neither 
can possibly know the contents of the other’s 
life. He may be able to name them; he 
does not know them. How would you 
describe pain to a man who has never 


experienced it? He cannot know it. He 
K 


146 Thirsting for the Springs 


cannot even imagine it. Pain is only 
known by the pain-ridden. Knowledge 
implies likeness. There are women in our 
midst who can form no possible conception 
of jealousy. They have no jealous sub- 
stance within them, and they cannot 
knowit. Knowledge implies likeness. The 
principle has a wide application. To know 
~ou must be. To know music, you must be 
musical. To know art, you must be artistic. 
To know Christ, you must be Christlike. 
“He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth 
not His commandments ”—who has not 
the likeness of His will—“‘is a liar.” “ He 
that loveth not ”—who has not the likeness 
of His love—‘‘ knoweth not God.” To 
have His will and to have His love, is to 
have His life, and therefore to know Him, 
just as He is, just what He is, our kinsman 
Christ! ‘“‘ This is life, . . . to know 
Jesus.”” To know Jesus is to share His 
life! His life is eternal. Life eternal is 
just Christ-life. This is life eternal, to 
have life like Christ, to know Him in 
spirit and in truth. 


y ee 
1 a 
“ " 


WHAT I WOULD IF I COULD 


Text: “ Some would have taken Him, but .. .°— 
John 7: 44. 


Ir the opportunity had been favourable, 
they would have taken Him. They were 
in the mood for it. Their inclinations were 
formed. Their purpose was set. In spirit 
everything was ready, but the opportunity 
did not serve. What was the difference 
between these men and those who eventu- 
ally perfected their desire and carried it 
out? Is there any difference in tempera- 
ment, in purpose, in moral colour and con- 
stitution? Is there any difference in soul ? 
No, the difference is only in the opportunity. 
There is no difference between the Guy 
Fawkes who lays his powder barrels and 
fires them, and the Guy Fawkes who lays 
his powder barrels but is prevented from 
firing. Guy Fawkes does not become 
virtuous because his programme was not 


accomplished. He remains the same. He 
147 


148 Thirsting for the Springs 


would have been no worse if his designs had 
been attained. Spiritually he did the deed. 
It was only an unexpected antagonism which 
prevented the visible achievement. 

““Some would have taken Him, but 
. -. If they had had the opportunity, 
they would have done it. See, then, 
opportunity, does not create character, but 
only reveals it. Opportunity makes patent 
what has hitherto been latent. The taking 
of the Master would not have rendered these 
men vicious or malicious; it would only 
have declared their device. 

Out of this there arises a very clear and 
all-important principle. What we would 
be, if opportunity presented, that we are. 
Our “would-bes” are the truest index 
of our character. A murderous hand may 
be stricken aside; that makes the man no 
less a murderer. Everything relating to 
murder was present, except the opportunity. 
What would the stuff within me make, if 
opportunity presented to me the circum- 
stances of a Cain? Are my dispositions 
such that I should repeat his act? What 


What I Would if I Could 149 


I would be in certain conditions that I am. 
The absence of fulfilment affords no proof 
of the presence of virtue or vice. That the 
chained dog cannot get at me does not 
prove him virtuous. He would, if he 
could. The biting would not create his 
vice; he is vicious; the venom is in him. 
My safety is only consequent upon his in- 
ability. Iam not obligated to his temper ; 
I am in debt to his chain. The inclination 
is there; the fulfilment is prevented. The 
character of the dog is to be found in the 
nature of his inclination. What we would 
do, that, in the sight of God, we have done. 
** As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” 

Let us take the light of this principle 
and carry it round about common life. 
Let us give another application to our text. 
“Some of them would have sold the 
margarine for butter, but . . .” Then 
in the sight of God they have done it. Sin 
that is uncommitted for fear of discovery is 
in reality done. A man who would label 
his margarine “ butter,” but who refrains 
for fear of the inspector, is essentially 


150 Tharsting for the Springs 


bad at the heart. Badness of this kind » 
will find an outlet somewhere. Sewer 
gas continually seeks for an exit. Suppos- 
ing one man has labelled his margarine 
“butter,” and another man has desisted 
for fear of discovery, and supposing they 
were both brought into the presence of 
Him whose eyes are as flame, wherein 
would be the difference? Both would 
stand condemned. 

““Some would have absented themselves 
from worship, but . . .” But what? 
“But for the look of the thing.” Then 
a man who would have absented himself 
was never present. People who attend 
God’s house for the look of the thing, never 
come at all. They would be absent if 
they dared. Then what they would do, 
they do. “These people draw nigh to 
Me, but their hearts are far from Me.” 

“Some would have withdrawn their 
subscriptions, but . . .” But what? 
“* But for the published lists.” Then they 
have withdrawn them. On this plane, 
the man who would do, has done. He 


What I Would ij I Could 151 


whose liberality is determined by his 
publicity, has never given unto the Lord. 
““ By Him actions are weighed.” He does 
not count the amount of the offertory. 
He notes the disposition of the giver. 
“Bring no more vain oblations.” The 
vain oblation is the gift without the giver, 
and with God such giving is not received. 
Here then is the principle I am seeking 
to expound. We are no better than our 
inclinations. Our wishes denote far more 
than our deeds. A man’s desires register 
his attainments. 

Now let us turn the whole matter round. 
If we are measured by our “ would-bes,” 
the principle would have application not 
only to vice, but to virtue. We are not 
judged by our fulfilments, but by our 
aspirations. “Thou didst well that it 
was in thine heart.” The desire to build 
the temple was interpreted by the Lord 
as a temple already built. What we would 
if we had the opportunity, we shall be 
credited with having done. 

“Some would have gone to serve in the 


152 Thirsting for the Springs 


foreign field, but . . .” But what? 
“The door was never opened.” Then, 
in the sight of God, such men and women 
have gone. To God they are foreign 
missionaries, and the glory of the mission- 
field is theirs. They would have gone, 
but there was an old mother to care for 
at home, or an invalid sister to watch, 
or an imbecile brother to tend. They 
toiled on here in the homeland, but their 
heart was ever away in lands of bond- 
age and night. God will take the will 
for the deed. These men and women 
will wear the missionary’s crown. Their 
““ would-be” will be regarded as a 
** well-done.” 

“Some would have given much to the 
cause of the King, but . . .” But what? 
“Their means were straitened, and they 
had great difficulty in keeping the wolf 
from the door.” They gave their little 
mite to the Lord’s work with a great desire 
that it might have been more. They 
gave a mite plus a “would-do.” Such 
giving is never to be estimated by the 


What I Would if I Could 153 


monetary quantity of the gift. “ This 
poor woman hath given more than all.” 
“Tf there be first a willing mind, it is 
accepted with God.” 

“Some would have given themselves 
to active Christian service, but .. .” 
But what? “They are bed-ridden.” 
They are chronic invalids. They lie in 
the bondage of continual pain. How will 
they be regarded in the day of the great 
reckoning? They will be judged by their 
** would-bes.”” Their life will be estimated 
not by its attainments, but by its inclina- 
tions. But is there not some little peril 
in thus distinguishing between inclinations 
and attainments, as though inclination 
in itself were not a great attainment ? 
Oh, the mystic energy of many a “ would- 
be”! The “would-be” is a prayer, and 
the fragrance of heaven is made of the 
perfume of prayer. “Golden vessels full 
of odours which are the prayers of saints.” 
We cannot measure the influences of the 
““ would-bes”” that lie like fervent flames 
in the hearts of many of the saints of 





best work of the kingdom is accomplis 
Our “would-bes” will constitute 
crowns. — 


AWE AND TRUST 


Text: “ Stand in awe, and sin not ; commune with — 
your own heart wpon your bed, and be still. Offer the 
sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the 
Lord.” —Psalm 4: 4, 5. 


“STAND in awe, and sin not.” This seems 
to be a little remote from the phrase- 
ology of modern religious life. Our voca- 
bulary is of a different type and order. 
Words like awe, fear, trembling, appear 
to be almost obsolete. Our speech finds 
its emphasis in such words as happiness, 
joy, peace, comfort. The Psalmist throws 
us back to quite a different plane. “‘ Stand 
in awe, and sin not!” This man has 
had a vision of the great white Throne. 
He has been contemplating the terrors 
of the Lord. He has listened to the awful 
imperatives. He has had a glimpse of 
the midnight of alienation. He spent his 
days in levity, as though God and duty 


were distant and irrelevant trifles. But 
155 


156 Thirsting for the Springs 


now his eyes have come upon the white- 
ness of the Eternal, the unsullied sovereignty, 
the holiness that would not be trifled with, 
and his careless walk is sharply arrested. 
His levity is changed into trembling. 
His indifference is broken up in awe. We 
have seen the experience in miniature, 
even in the fellowship of man with man. 
One man has introduced a piece of indecent 
or questionable foolery in the presence 
of another man, and he has been im- 
mediately confronted with a face which 
chilled his blood and froze his levity 
into a stilled and wondering silence. No 
man’s life will ever be deepened into 
fruitful awe if he has not seen similar 
features confronting him in the countenance 
of God. “The face of the Lord is against 
them that do evil.” ‘‘ Woe is me, for 
mine eyes have seen the King.” We 
have got to see the Face if we are to be 
checked in our frivolity, and if we are 
to feel our indecencies blazing within us 
like a destructive fire. 

Why is there so little awe in our religious 


Awe and Trust 157 


lives to-day? Why is there so little 
fruitful fear? How is it that we have 
altogether lost the apostolic trembling ? 
Is it because we have lost that Face? 
Do we intentionally hideit ? The whiteness 
of the Saviour is not alluring. We prefer 
the sweetness. And so we gather up all 
the gracious promises. We lift them out 
of their context. We see them out of 
relationship to the general body of truth. 
We lose their proportion, and they become 
hurtful rather than sanctifying. Promises 
gathered in their relationship to warnings 
wil tend to our good. Flowers found 
in God’s world as He plants them will : 
do us no harm; but massed together in 
heaps as they are by the perfume-makers 
in Southern France, they become breeders 
of disease. It is not intended that we 
should accumulate heaps of gracious 
promises, and overlook the severities of 
Revelation. Found as Christ proclaimed 
them they enliven and cheer; thought- 
lessly massed together they lull into spiritual 
stupor. 


158 Thirsting for the Springs 


We can see the same tendency in our 
choice of hymns. We do not like the 
hymns in which the whirlwind sweeps and 
drives. We prefer the hymns that are 
just filled with honey. And so the “ sweet ” 
hymns are the favourites, and the sweeter 
they are the more welcome they are to our 
palates. We have partially dropped the 
hymns that harrow and alarm, and which 
minister to our fear. Some of us have 
got what we sometimes call a “sweet 
Jesus.” We know Him only as the Speaker 
of gentle and condescending speech, and 
of tender, winsome invitation. We have 
not got a Jesus before Whom we frequently 
“stand in awe.” We glide on in the 
religious life heedlessly, and at no moment 
do we stand appalled. 

Many of us have lost the severities 
of the New Testament, and we have nothing 
to fear. Shall I recall one or two of these 
forgotten severities? “Many will say to 
Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not 
prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy name 
have cast out devils, and in Thy name 


Awe and Trust 159 


done many wonderful works? And then 
will I profess unto them, I never knew you: 
depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” 
“Cast ye the unprofitable servant into 
outer darkness: there shall be weeping 
and gnashing of teeth.” “ Depart from 
me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, pre- 
pared for the devil and his angels.” What- 
ever may be the meaning of these words, 
they are of such import as to make us 
“‘ stand in awe.” ‘They indicate a severity 
which is the corollary of the Lord’s holiness. 
It is because these terrors are left out 
in our religious conceptions and in our 
preaching, that the frivolity of men is 
gratified and coddled by illegitimate 
sweetness. In a memorandum, written 
in the year of his ordination, Newman 
said: ‘“‘ Those who make comfort the great 
subject of their preaching seem to mistake 
the end of their ministry. Holiness is 
the great end, comfort is a cordial, but 
no one drinks cordials from morning to 
night.” We must re-proclaim the elements 
of severity which minister to a bracing 


160 Thirsting for the Springs 


holiness. Men do not feel the power of 
the Gospel when in Christ they discern 
nothing to fear. Many men are lost 
because they do not see the great white 
Throne.' Thomas Boston said that the net 
of the Gospel needed to be weighted with 
the leads of the terrors of the law, or it 
would lightly float on the surface and no 
fish be caught. We must steadily keep 
in view the sterner patches of the New 
Testament teaching. We must contem- 
plate the whiteness of the Eternal, and 
stand in awe. 

“Commune with your own heart upon 
your own bed, and be still.”” When we have 
gazed upon the undefiled heights, upon 
the holiness of God, we are then to hold 
a soliloquy with ourselves. In his “ Saint’s 
Everlasting Rest,” Richard Baxter says 
that every good Christian is a good preacher 
to his own soul. The very same methods 
which a minister uses in his preaching 
to others, every Christian should endeavour 
after in speaking to himself. Having seen 
the Throne, let us hold converse with our 


Awe and Trust 161 


own hearts. “Commune with thine own 
heart upon thy bed.” ‘The darkness of 
night is the most appropriate season. 
There is nothing in these hours to ensnare 
the eyes and to entice the mind to dis- 
traction. In the darkness introspection 
becomes easy. “Be still.” Shut the 
door. Silence every distraction. Reject 
every mental intruder. Take nothing with 
thee into thy heart, except the vision of 
the Throne. Then call out the contents 
of thy heart. Challenge them; question 
them; cross-examine them. Let nothing 
remain hid. Let thy awed feeling be with 
thee in the inquest. Search out every 
corner. Set everything in the light of 
His countenance. You ask if it is difficult 
work? Yes. The most difficult work to 
which man can apply himself. The revela- 
tion adds fear to awe, and our condition 
becomes appalling. Once let a man go 
with the awed vision into his own spirit, 
and he will be filled with the trembling 
which is the earnest of a great salvation. 
‘What must I do to be saved?” 
L 


162 Tharsting for the Springs 


“Offer the sacrifices of righteousness.” 
Whatever these words may have meant 
to the Psalmist, they can only mean one 
thing for us who live in the light of the 
Gospel day. When a man has contem- 
plated the dazzling holiness of God, and in 
self-communion has discovered his own 
dark appalling need, and, full of trembling, 
turns again to the Father, he has only 
one resource. He must “ offer the sacrifice 
of righteousness.” Christ Jesus is our 
* Righteousness.” “ Christ our Passover is 
sacrificed for us.” We have no hope but 
in His death. In His offering we re-dis- 
cover our completeness. In His sacrifice 
we find our life and security. This is 
no beautiful theory detached from the 
hard facts of burdensome life. A million 
souls can set their testimony to it and 
seal it to be true. When they had 
ransacked their own heart and found 
it to be a nest of defilement, and 
they were filled with fear, they turned 
to the love of Calvary and found pro- 
vision for both fear and defilement, and 


Awe and Trust 163 


in the crucified Christ found purity and 


rest. 
** Not the labour of my hands, 
Can fulfil Thy laws’ demands ; 
Could my zeal no respite know, 
Could my tears for ever flow, 
All for sin could not atone ; 
Thou must save, and Thou alone.” 


* And put your trust in the Lord.” How 
graciously the passage closes! The awe 
and the trembling converge in fruitful trust ! 
The discovery of the holy Sovereignty, the 
discovery of personal defilement, the dis- 
covery of a Redeemer, are consummated 
in the discovery of rest. When I have 
found my “ Righteousness” my part is 
now to trust. The awe, the purity of the 
holy Soverignty will become mine. Trust 
keeps open the lne of communication 
between the soul and God. Along that 
line convoys of blessedness are brought 
into the heart; manifold gifts of grace 
for the weak and defenceless spirit. When 
I trust I keep open the “ highway of the 
Lord,” and along that road there come to 


164 Thirsting for the Springs 


me from the Eternal my bread, my water, 
my instructions, my powers of defence. 
*T can do all things through Christ who 
strengtheneth me.” I can “ work out my 
own salvation with fear and trembling.” 


THE LIVING WATER 


Text: “ Hoeryone that drinketh of this water shall 
thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that 
IT shall give him shall never thirst ; but the water that I 
shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing 
up into eternai life.”—John 4: 13, 14. 


“EvEeRYONE that drinketh of this water 
shall thirst again.” It is not difficult to 
discern traces of this thirst in the faces of 
those whom we meet in the common way. 
If we take our stand at the corner of the 
street and scan the faces of the passing 
crowd, it is only now and again that 
we gaze upon a countenance which is sig- 
nificant of peace. How rarely the face 
suggests the joy and the serenity of a 
healthy satisfaction! We are confronted 
by an abounding unrest! The majority 
of people seem to be afflicted with the pain 
of unsatisfied want. The very faces are 
suggestive of a disquieting thirst. We 
have a varied vocabulary in which we 
describe this prevailing condition :—“ Un- 
165 


166 Thirsting for the Springs 


rest ’”’ “* discontented,” “* dissatisfied,” “* not 
right with himself.” And very frequently 
this internal disquietude manifests itself 
in external irritableness, in a general dis- 
agreeableness towards one’s neighbours and 
friends. Let us quietly contemplate some 
of the people who are the victims of con- 
suming and disquieting thirst. There is 
the great army of men and women who are 
possessed by the fever of worry. There is 
no calm collectedness about their life. 
They have no seasons of cool reflection. 
Their life is feverish from morning till 
night. How has the fever arisen? Some- 
times fever is the result of a chill. A cold 
wind suddenly arises and blows across the 
life, a wind of disappointment which blights 
some happy ambition; a wind of bad news 
which chills us in the midst of a feast. 
These wintry visitations are often pro- 
ductive of subsequent worry, and they 
issue in spiritual feverishness. We become 
“heated hot with burning fears.” There 
is also a large company of men and women 
who may be described as dominated by 


The Living Water 167 


the lust of bliss. “As the hart panteth 
after the water brooks, so panteth my 
soul after thee, O pleasure!” These are 
the souls that are always thirsting after 
new sensations. The old delights speedily 
pall, and afford no gratification to the jaded 
palate. They require something of a more 
piquant flavour. It is like dram drinking ; 
at the commencement they find pleasure in 
dilutions; in the long run they take it 
“neat.” There is also the army of those 
who are scorched with the craving of carnal 
passion. Any reference to this can be 
made in a word. It is a bonfire that licks 
up all the cool dews and moisture of the 
spiritual life. Every leaf withers, every 
flower languishes and fades. The soul that 
is imprisoned in a temple of carnality is 
stricken with indescribable thirst. Then 
there are those in whose lives there is 
the smouldering fire of a dull indifference. 
There is thirst even in those whom indiffer- 
ence seems to reign; nay, the indifferent 
are often the most restless in their racing 
about among the pools. They call their 


168 Thirsting for the Springs 


restlessness by quite another name, but 
its proper name is spiritual thirst. And 
then, lastly, there are those who are bur- 
dened with the sense of sin, and who are 
possessed by a fervent longing for the 
living God. “Oh, that I knew where I 
might find Him!” “ As the hart panteth 
after the water brooks, so panteth my soul 
after thee, O God.” “I thirst for the 
living God.” 

By what resources do men seek to allay 
their thirst? They are weary in their 
worry; they are tired in their pleasures, 
they are sick of their passions, how do 
they seek to quieten the soul within them, 
and to lead their life into rest? Too often 
resort is made to the “ waters of the earth.” 
We try to allay a spiritual thirst by a carnal 
draught. When Newman in his early life 
was burdened with the sense of his own 
shortcomings in the presence of his Lord, 
and his letters home lacked their usual 
buoyancy, his mother wrote to him:— 
“Your father and I fear very much from 
the tone of your letters that you are 


The Living Water 169 


depressed. We fear you debar yourseli 
a proper quantity of wine.” That is a 
type of suggestion which is often made to 
people who are troubled with spiritual 
unrest. They are recommended to material 
ministries by which their feverish unrest 
is only intensified and inflamed. But they 
“thirst again.” Others make an attempt 
to realise satisfaction and peace by im- 
mersing themselves in stimulants like 
novel-reading and theatre-going, and in 
the manifold pleasures of society. They 
intensify the social stimulant. Yet they 
“thirst again.” Others plunge more 
deeply into business. The songster is 
languishing! Howthen? Re-gild his cage. 
The soul is languishing! Howthen? Re- 
gild her cage. Seek for more gold, more 
gold, and surround the soul with material 
treasure. And yet the soul refuses to 
be appeased, and “thirsts again.” Or, 
again, we give opiates to our disquieted 
and feverish souls. How people find an 
opiate in making a promise to amend. 
They find contentment in their intentions. 


170 Thirsting for the Springs 


But the satisfaction is only transient. 
They speedily awake out of their unnatural 
rest, and they are thirsty still. Others 
give themselves the opiate of self-dis- 
paragement. Many a man thinks he is 
becoming better because he severely con- 
demns himself. They esteem it a sign of 
virtue to denounce themselves as fools. 
They discover a sort of spiritual comfort 
from their own self-severity. All these 
are pitiable evasions. At the best they 
are only transient ministries, which, when 
their immediate influence passes away, 
leave us in deepened disquietude and 
intensified unrest. 

Now let us turn to Jesus. “He would 
have given thee living water.” The Master 
deals with the painful thirst of men by 
bringing to them the gift of spiritual 
energy. He pours into the languishing 
soul spiritual forces that refresh and vitalise, 
that restore and maintain. John Calvin 
says :—‘‘ There is no sap and vigour in us 
until the Lord waters us by His Spirit.” 
The coming of the Living Water into the 


The Living Water 171 


life is creative of “sap and vigour.” All 
the powers of the life are vitalised. The 
languishing conscience, the impaired affec- 
tions, the sluggish emotion, the enfeebled 
will, all are invigorated by the inrush into 
the soul of “the river of water of life.” 
We become “trees of the Lord,” and the 
“trees of the Lord are full of sap.” 

“The water that I shall give you shall 
be in you a well.” It is the gift of internal 
energy; the resources are within us. I 
stood a little while ago in the fine old ruin 
of Middleham Castle, I passed beyond the 
outer shell, and beyond the inner defences 
into the keep, and there in the innermost 
sanctum of the venerable pile was the old 
well. The castle was independent of out- 
side supplies. If it were besieged it had 
resources of water at its own heart. The 
changing seasons made no difference to 
the gracious supply. That is the purpose 
of our Master in placing the “ well ” within 
us. He wants to make us independent of 
external circumstances. Whatever be the 
season that reigns without, He wants ful- 


172 Thirsting for the Springs 


ness and vitality to reign within. So the 
Master’s gift is the gift of a well, “ springing 
up,” leaping up, “ into eternal life.” “ We 
are renewed by His Spirit in the inner 
man.” 
“Whosoever drinketh . . . shall never 
therst.” It is a spiritual energy. It is an 
eternal energy. It is a persistent energy. 
““ Never thirst.” That does not mean that 
in the Christian life desire is ended. “ The 
ill of all ills is the death of desire.” In the 
redeemed life desire is intense and wakeful. 
There is desire, but no despairing. There 
is longing, but no languishing. There is 
fervour, but no fever. There is aspiration 
and contentment. There is striving and 
rest. We still thirst for the fulness of 
grace not yet received, but there is no pain 
in the thirst. In the Christian life the 
very thirst for greater fulness is itself 
a delight. If I may quote Calvin again: 
“Believers know desire, but they do not 
know drought.” 

And what is the glorious issue of this 
indwelling energy of grace? “It shall be 


The Living Waiter 173 


in him a well of water springing up into 
eternal life.” The grace continues with us, 
and overflows into a blessed immortality. 
The Spirit that redeems will also perfect. 
Whatever may be our estate when it finds 
us, our ultimate attainments will be the 
likeness of the Lord. “The living water 
rises from Heaven, and rises towards 
Heaven.” We shall at length be presented 
blameless before the Throne of God. “‘ Ho, 
everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the 
waters.” 





THE PALSIED SOUL 
Text: Mark2: 1-4. 


Hexzz is a swift series of pictures both force- 
ful and pathetic. There is the helpless 
paralytic, his face now and again revealing 
the faint flickering light of a glimmering 
hope, like the spasms of diluted sunshine 
which sometimes break through the murky 
November gloom. And here are the four 
friends, sympathetic, optimistic, perfectly 
assured, urging their way through the thick- 
set surging crowd. And here are “ certain 
of the Scribes ” sitting in the house, cold, 
unemotional, friendly only to precedent and 
tradition, and jealous for the sustained 
authority of their own school. And in 
the midst of it all, the Master! What does 
He think about it? What is the nature of 
His aspirations? What does He see? He 
sees the invisible. The merely material 
becomes the unsubstantial, and the spiritual 
stands revealed. The picturesque setting 
175 


176 Thirsting for the Springs 


melts away, and the unseen background of 
dispositions emerges into view. Bodies 
become transparencies, and the naked spirit 
stands unveiled in the searching light of 
the uncreated beam. The harvest of the 
Master’s eye is gathered from the mystic 
fields of the soul. He gazes at the bearers 
and sees their faith. He looks behind the 
rebellious limbs of the palsied and sees the 
servitude of the soul. He pierces the hard, 
impassive masks of the Scribes, and reads 
their innermost thoughts. Everywhere it is 
the unseen which becomes conspicuous; the 
spiritual becomes emphatic. Let us look 
at the scene through the Master’s inter- 
preting eyes, and in His light we may see 
light. 

The Master sees the faith of the bearers. 
“* Jesus seeing their faith.” There we have 
the faith in its last analysis. Its essential 
ingredient is simple confidence. It is not 
primarily the apprehension of a doctrine, 
it is simple trust in a person. To have faith 
in Jesus is to have confidence in the ability 
and reliability of Jesus to do what He claims 


The Palsied Soul V7 


to do. We have a similar instance in the 
graphic narrative recorded in the ninth 
chapter of John. I know that towards the 
end of that great chapter the once blind 
man is confronted with the mighty demand : 
“Dost thou believe on the Son of God? ” 
Yes, but the question was asked only after 
his sight had been restored. Simple faith 
had been manifested before Jesus sought 
to incite him to the grip of a large and 
vitalising doctrine. “Go, wash in the Pool 
of Siloam.” ‘The man obeyed and went. 
That was the vital element in his faith. The 
simple faith paved the way to the larger 
belief. The healed man was ready for the 
unveiling of the personality of the Healer ; 
but first of all the primary faith consisted 
in untroubled confidence, in perfect trust 
that Jesus was as good as His word, and 
would make His word good. So it is in 
the passage before us. These four men 
had trust in the Saviour’s trustworthiness. 
They were assured that He had the power 
and the disposition to fulfil His own pro- 
gramme—“ The recovery of sight to the 
M 


178 Thirsting for the Springs 


blind, and the setting at liberty of them that 
are bruised.” 

Now if simple trust be the primary in- 
gredient in faith, see how such faith in 
Jesus operates in the common life. The 
faith of these friends of the paralytic had 
three characteristics. It was energetic. 
It was a workful faith. Vital faith and 
vital energy are inseparable. There is a 
wonderful little list of inseparables in the 
Epistle to the Thessalonians. ‘“ Your work 
of faith, and labour of love, and patience of 
hope.” Faith evinces itself in work, and 
love in labour, and hope in patience. Where 
there is no faith, there is a consequent loss 
of heart and loss of courage, and strength is 
dissipated in waste of retreat. The faith of 
these men was full of power, applying itself 
as a splendid dynamic in actual service. 
It was philanthropic. Faith is primarily 
individualistic. Influentially it is grandly 
socialistic. The sweep of its energy in- 
evitably enwraps the lives of others. In the 
energy of its prayers, its ambitions, its 
strivings after holiness, we discover a force 


The Palsied Soul 179 


which is humane and philanthropic, “ look- 
ing not only at its own things, but also on 
the things of others.” Faith laid hold of this 
poor paralytic, the man of the palsied body 
and soul, and carried him to the Master’s 
feet, it is inventive. Unbelief soon ex- 
hausts its resources: it makes a hopeless 
and therefore a lukewarm attempt, fails 
and turns back and says: “I told you so.” 
Faith is full of ideas, expediencies, designs. 
Faith is fertile, and plans devices. Does 
the road seem closed this way? Faith 
says: We will try another. Have the 
usual methods failed to reach the masses ? 
Then faith will employ the ministry of 
the Salvation Army. Have the ordinary 
services proved uninviting? Then faith 
will begin a P.S.A. When faith could not 
get near one way, she uncovered the roof ! 
This man must be brought to the Master, 
and the pushing inventiveness of an ener- 
getic faith, makes a way, and lays its burden 
at the Healer’s feet. 

The Master sees the spiritual misery of the 
palsied. Here lies the man. His muscular 


180 Thirsting for the Springs 


action has lost its motion owing to some 
insidious disease upon the nerves. He can 
no longer command the muscular activities 
of his own body. Here he lies a helpless 
log. ‘The Master looks at him, through him, 
and, behold! another kind of paralysis is 
revealed. The man cannot command the 
activities of his own soul. His spiritual 
volition is impaired. His body is im- 
prisoned in the palsy, his soul is imprisoned 
in sin. The four friends had laid the 
paralysed body at the Master’s feet, and 
they expected that the great Healer would 
immediately address Himself to its clamant 
needs. How startled they would be when 
the first words of the Master had no reference 
to the body, but were addressed to some 
need apparently remote. “Thy sins be 
forgiven thee.” The Lord addresses Him- 
self to the direct need, to the palsied spirit. 
He sets Himself to berate the powers and 
dignities of the soul. The paralysis of the 
soul is unveiled by the Bible in startling 
phraseology. Let me recall one or two of 
the phrases, that we may sharpen our con- 


The Palsied Soul 181 


ception by what is meant by the hideous 
presence of sin. “Sin dwelleth in me”: 
my personality is a kind of house, and sin is 
the master of the house. “Sin reigneth in 
me”: sin is not only my master but my 
tyrant. “I was sold unto sn”: I ama 
piece of merchandise, and I am disposed of 
into slavery; sold to a lust; to an evil 
desire; to the habit of greed; to the 
passion of jealousy, or to the ugly genius 
of revenge. “They are all under sin”; 
we are under its crushing domination, as 
though its feet were upon our necks. “Sin 
abounds”: it is a horrible disease that 
scatters its prolific germs over every faculty 
and disposition of life. In all these phrases 
I see what is meant by the appalling 
sovereignty of sin. It is a dominion which 
results in a moral and spiritual paralysis, 
every dignity and prerogative in the life 
being crushed in an unclean and debasing 
servitude. And so to this sin-bound soul 
the Master brings the gracious evangel of 
forgiveness. “Thy sins be forgiven thee.” 
The forgiveness of the Lord is not some sweet 


182 Thirsting for the Springs 


and ineffectual sentiment. It is the mystic 
and mighty energy of creation engaged in 
the work of re-creation. When the Lord 
says “ Forgiven,” the life that was locked 
and imprisoned in icy winter feels round 
about it the influence of a warm and ex- 
pansive spring. The Bible appears almost 
to wrestle for a varied phraseology in which 
to reveal the realities of this glorious de- 
liverance. Sins are to be “ blotted out,” 
““ wiped away,” “ covered,” “ taken away.” 
Where sins abounds grace doth much more 
abound. The forces of spiritual health are 
in the ascendant, and the powers of evil and 
night are dethroned and in retreat. “ The 
winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the 
flowers appear on the earth, and the time 
of the singing of birds is come.” When 
the Master said: “ Thy sins are forgiven 
thee,” an angel might have witnessed : 
“This thy brother was dead and is alive 
again, he was lost and is found.” 


THE BUSINESS INSTINCT IN 
RELIGION 


Text: The kingdom of heaven is like unto a 
merchaniman.—Matt. 13: 45. 


Ir the citizen of the Kingdom of God can 
be suggestively compared to a merchant- 
man, there must be something about him 
exceedingly businesslike and enterprising. 
Our Lord appears to teach that business 
qualities are needful in the pursuit of the 
things that are needful in the Kingdom of 
God. I am to be as businesslike in my 
religious life as I am in my commercial life. 
The peril proclaimed is this, that men who 
are exceedingly businesslike in the market 
are exceedingly unbusinesslike in the sanctu- 
ary, and that men who are thoroughly alert 
and enterprising in earning their daily bread 
are sleepy and resourceless in their pursuit 
of a holy life. There are many men who 
are sharp and shrewd and all alive in the 
world, who are dull and sluggish in the 
183 


184 Thirsting for the Springs 


Church. Men, somehow or other, drop 
their business instincts when they go about 
their Father’s business. Now this parable 
is an appeal to men to bring into religion 
the same wide-awake business capabilities 
which they exercise in the affairs of the 
world. If men would be as businesslike in 
the pursuit of holiness as they are in their 
pursuit of gold, they would speedily become 
spiritual millionaires, wealthily endowed 
with the unsearchable riches of Christ. The 
perfecting counsel of the parable is therefore 
this: Be as businesslike in the building up _ 
of character as you are in the building up 
of fortune. Bring your business gifts and 
aptitudes in the affairs of business, and 
exercise them in the acquisition of the 
treasures of Heaven. 

Now I propose to go into business life 
and call out two or three of the qualities 
which are essential to worldly success. And 
then I propose to carry them over to the life 
of the spirit, where we shall find them to 
be the secrets of perpetual growth. 

Here, then, is a quality which is greatly 


The Business Instinct in Religion 185 


esteemed in the ways of the world—the 
quality of alertness. It is characteristic of 
every successful merchantman. If I listen 
to the ordinary speech of the man of the 
world, I find how great is the value which 
he places upon this gift. “A man must 
have all his wits about him.” “It is the 
early bird that catches the worm.” These 
are recognised maxims in the way of success, 
and they point to the commanding necessity 
of an alertful spirit. A merchantman must 
be alert for the detection of hidden perils. 
He must be alert for the perception of 
equally hidden opportunity. He must be 
alert for the recognition of failing methods. 
His eyes must clearly see where old roads 
are played out, and where new ground may 
be broken. Let us carry the suggestion 
over into the affairs of the Kingdom. The 
Scriptures abound in counsel to alertness. 
““ Awake, awake!” “ Watch ye!” “ Let 
us watch and besober!” ‘“ Watching unto 
prayer.” It is an all-essential ingredient 
in the life of the progressive saint. He is 
to be on the alert againt pitfalls, against 


186 Thirsting for the Springs 


bad bargains, against selling pearls for 
refuse, against impoverishing compromise. 
“Watch ye, lest ye fall into temptation.” 
He is to be on the alert for opportunity. 
What eyes our Lord wants us to have in the 
things of the Kingdom! “ Watch ye, for 
at such an hour when ye think not the Son 
of Man comes.” We never know when the 
august Visitor may turn up. He may 
appear in some tame and commonplace duty, 
and if we are not “all alive” we shall never 
suspect His presence, and we shall miss His 
appearing. He is always showing His face, 
and to have knowledge of His presence is 
great gain. Therefore it is all-needful that 
we watch every colour, that we look into 
the eyes of every moment, if perchance we 
may see the opportunity of becoming rich 
in the treasures of Heaven. So are we to 
be on the alert for the conversion of every- 
thing into spiritual gold. “Buy up the 
opportunity.” We are especially to look at 
things that appear to be useless, lest they 
turn out to be the raw material of the gar- 
ments of Heaven. Sir Titus Salt, walking 


The Business Instinct in Religion 187 


along the quay of Liverpool, saw a pile of 
unclean waste. He saw it with very original 
eyes, and had the vision of a perfected 
and beautiful product. He saw the possi- 
bilities in discarded refuse, and he bought 
the opportunity. That is perhaps the main 
business of the successful citizen of the 
Kingdom, the conversion of waste. This 
disappointment which I have had to-day, 
what can I make out of it? What an eye 
it wants to see the ultimate gain in checked 
and chilled ambition— 


* To stretch a hand through time, and catch 
The far-off interest of tears.” 


This grief of mine, what can I make of it? 
Must I leave it as waste in the tract of the 
years, or can it be turned into treasure ? 
This pain of mine, is it only a lumbering 
burden, or does the ungainly vehideé carry 
heavenly gold? It is in conditions of this 
kind that the spiritual expert reveals him- 
self. He is all “alive unto God,” and seeing 
the opportunity he seizes it like a successiful 
merchantman. 


188 Thirsting for the Springs 


I go again into business life in order to 
gain a knowledge of the attributes of success. 
And this is what I hear one man say to 
another who has risen to fortune: “ Every- 
thing about him goes like clockwork.” Of 
another man whose days witness a gradual 
degeneracy quite another word is spoken: 
“He has no system, no method, everything 
goes by the rule of chance.” Then the 
quality of method appears to be one of the 
essentials of a successful man of affairs. 
Is this equally true in the things of the 
Kingdom ? How many there are of us 
who, in our religious life, are loose, slipshod, 
unmethodical! How unsystematic we are 
in our worship and our prayers! Our 
worldly business would speedily drop into 
ruin if we applied to it the same incon- 
siderate ways with which we discharge the 
duties of our religion. William Law, in his 
inspired book, “‘ Call to a Devout Life,” has 
instructed us in methodical devotion. He 
systematically divides the day, devoting to 
certain hours and certain seasons special 
kinds of praises and prayers. This was the 


The Business Instinct in Religion 189 


early glory of the Methodist denomina- 
tion. Their distinctiveness consisted in the 
systematic ordering of the Christian life. 
I know that too much method may become 
a bondage, but too little may become a 
rout. Too much red tape is creative of 
servitude, but to have no red tape at all 
is to be the victim of disorder. There is a 
happy medium between chaos and bondage. 
There is a reasonable method which leaves 
play for the spontaneous exercises of 
thought and affection. We need some 
method in prayer. We can so habituate 
ourselves to pray at certain seasons, that 
when the hour comes round, the soul is 
instinctively found upon its knees, We 
need some method in the arrangement of 
our prayers, lest they settle down into 
narrowness and poverty, and are wanting 
in sympathy and appreciation. We need 
method in our spiritual labours. Even the 
ministry on behalf of others requires to be 
regular and systematic. We need to have 
method of benefactions. It is the people 
who do not give by method who are always 


190 Thirsting for the Springs 


prone to greatly exaggerate the amount 
they give. Giving irregularly, they are 
ignorant of their giving, and their selfish 
instinct prompts them to think it great. A 
healthy citizen of the Kingdom of God is 
like unto a merchantman, and his life is 
regulated by vigorous order. 

I go again into the realm of business, and 
here is a sentence that encounters me from 
one who knows the road: “The habit of 
firm decision is indispensable to a man of 
business.” The real business man waits till 
the hour is come, and then acts decisively. 
“He strikes while the iron is hot.” An 
undecisive business man lives in perpetual 
insecurity. He meanders along in waver- 
ing uncertainty until his business house has 
to be closed. Is not this element of decision 
needful in the light of the Spirit ? Religious 
life is too apt to be full of “ifs ” and “ buts ” 
and “perhapses”’ and “ peradventures.” 
I am experiencing at this moment a fervent 
holy spiritual impulse. In what consists 
my salvation? To strike while the iron is 
hot? “Suffer me first to go and bid them 


The Business Instinct in Religion 191 


farewell.” No, the iron will speedily grow 
cold. While the holy thing glows before 
you, strongly decide and concentrate your 
energies in supporting your decision. “I 
am resolved what to do.” That was said 
byamanofthe world. Let it be the speech 
of the man of the Kingdom of God. 

I will go again into the ways of the 
world, that I may find instruction for 
the way of the Kingdom. I find that in 
business life it is essential that a man must 
run risks and make ventures. He must 
be daring, and he must have the element 
of courage. What says the man of the 
world? “Nothing venture, nothing win.” 
‘Faint heart never won fair lady.” Faint 
heart never wins anything. John Bunyan’s 
Faintheart had repeatedly to be carried. 
Has the citizen of the Kingdom to risk 
anything? Indeed he has. He must risk 
the truth. A lhe might appear to offer 
him a bargain, but he must risk the truth. 
Let him sow the truth, even though the 
threatened harvest may be tears. Let him 
venture the truth, even though great and 


192  Thirsting for the Springs 


staggering loss seems to be drawn to his 
door. ‘“ He that goeth forth and weepeth, 
bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come 
again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves 
with him.” A man has again and again to 
make his choice between Christ and thirty 
pieces of silver. Let him make the venture, 
let the silver go; risk the loss! Ifit means 
putting up the shutters he will go out with 
Christ! “He that loseth his life for My 
sake shall find it.” Alertness, method, 
decision, courage! These are some of the 
qualities that are needed by the citizen 
of the Kingdom. With these splendid 
business instincts he will do fine bar- 
gaining, and become rich in faith and hope 
and in love. 


THE MINISTRY OF PRAISE 


Text: “J will praise Thee, O Lord, with my whole 
heart ; I will show forth all Thy marvellous works. 
I will be glad and rejoice in Thee ; I will sing praise 
to Thy name, O thou Most High.” —Psalm 9: 1, 2. 


“I witt praise Thee.” That is a note that 
is too commonly silent in our religious life. 
Even many of our consecration pledges 
avoid any reference to the duty of praise. 
We have our prayer-meetings, and our 
self-denial weeks and our days of humilia- 
tion, but we rarely gather together for 
the supremely exhilarating business of 
praise. We extend our hands in supplica- 
tion, we do not jubilantly uplift them in 
adoration. There are ten who cry “God 
be merciful” for one who sings “God 
be praised.” There were ten lepers who 
possessed sufficient faith to cry for healing ; 
there was only one returned to engage in 
the ministry of praise. 

Now, here is a man who sets himself to 

N 193 


194 Thirsting for the Springs 


the business of praise, as though he were 
about to engage in a great matter. He 
does not turn to it in any easy, lazy, and 
indifferent manner. “I will praise Thee 
with my whole heart.” He sets about it 
with undivided attention, He awakes his 
entire personality, and devotes all his 
manifold powers to the ministry of thanks- 
giving. ‘ With my whole heart.” The 
word heart is a spacious word. It includes 
all the interior things, all the central things. 
It includes the will, the power that lies 
behind all the faculties, the energy that 
contributes resolution and purpose and 
directive force. It includes the intellect 
and, primarily among the powers of mind, 
the faculties of memory and imagination. 
When a man comes to the ministry of 
praise, his memory must be wide awake. 
He must be able to search his yesterdays, 
to gather up their suggestiveness, to behold 
the broad marks of Providence, to see the 
gracious dealings of the King. He must 
** call to mind the things that have been.” 
** Thou shalt remember all the way by which 


The Ministry of Prawse 195 


the Lord thy God hath led thee.” And 
when a man comes to the business of praise, 
his imagination also must be active. He 
must be able to pierce the outer vestures 
of things. He must be able to apprehend 
the grace that hides in a plain face. He 
must be able to appreciate the mercy that 
is hidden in gloom. He must be able to 
feel something of the love of God even 
in the dark and cloudy day. He must 
never forget the blue sky even when he 
is enveloped in fog. And he.must also 
bring to the ministry of praise the wor- 
ship of his feelings. If the thought is 
brought into the sanctuary, the feelings will 
assuredly follow. The tides are governed 
by the moon; the power of thought 
governs the flow of the emotions; the 
trend of the feelings is determined by the 
“set” of the mind. All this is meant 
by the phrase, “praising God with the 
whole heart.” Come, will! and make my 
praise forceful. Come, intellect! and make 
it enlightened. And come, feeling! and 
make it affectionate. “All that is 


196 Thirsting for the Springs 


within me, praise and bless His Holy 
Name.” 

I will show forth all Thy marvellous works. 
When a man has got his whole heart busy 
in praising God, he will have some mar- 
vellous things to show. If will and intel- 
lect and emotion are all engaged i in worship, 
there will be no difficulty in discovering 
the wonderful works of God. “I will show 
forth.” 'The suggestion is just this, he will 
score it as with a mark, he will not allow 
it to slip.by unrecorded. He will be his 
own scribe. He will be as a man “ with a 
writer’s inkhorn by his side.” And he will 
be always recording the doings of God. 
He will keep a journal of mercies. For 
his own sake he will write the things deep 
upon his memory, that he may recall them 
and rehearse them in the days when all 
the daughters of music are brought low. 
But he will not only register the works, 
he will also publish them. The word is 
suggestive not only of a note-book, but of 
a proclamation. To whom shall we tell 
the story of God’s marvellous works? 


The Ministry of Praise 197 


“‘ Tell ye your children of it.” How rarely 
we tell our children the story of the goodness 
of God to us! How rarely we unfold the 
providence of our own experience! If we 
have made a journal of mercies, if we have 
written them deep in the book of our 
remembrance, let us sometimes turn the 
pages and read the records to our little 
ones, if perchance their eyes may be opened 
to the ever-present loving kindness of 
the Eternal Lord. To whom shall we tell 
it? “I will declare Thy name unto my 
brethren.” Cannot we give our brethren a 
few extracts from the journal? ‘“ My soul 
shall make her boast in the Lord.” That 
is far away the best preaching. When 
a man lays hold of his brother or his 
neighbour, and says to him, “Thou art in 
trouble; let me tell thee what the Lord 
once did to me,” that is of all preaching 
most pregnant with strength and consola- 
tion. To whom shall we tell it? “ De- 
clare his glory among the heathen.” There 
are people who have never heard the story. 
“Tell it out among the heathen.” The 


198 Thirsting for the Springs 


day will be fruitful in opportunity. Every- 
where we shall have space to proclaim our 
evangel. Let us be the ministers of the 
Lord’s goodness, and make it known in 
the ways of men. 

“I will be glad and rejoice.” I do not 
wonder at this sequence. A man who is 
bringing his whole heart to the contem- 
plation of the Lord’s mercies, and who is 
making them known to others, must be 
filled with the spirit of rejoicing. “I will 
be glad.” The word is significant of a 
brightening up, a dawn, a breaking of 
cheer, geniality. “I will rejoice.” The 
word is suggestive of the exulting bubbling 
of the spring. And so the two words 
together give us the image of the leaping 
waters with the sunshine on them! And 
such is always the joy of the Lord. It 
is fresh as the spring, and as warm and 
cheering as the sunlight. 

“ I will sing praises to Thy name.” Again 
I do not wonder. The contemplation of 
mercies, the giving of thanks, the bearing 
of witness, the flowing of gladness. Surely 


The Minisiry of Praise 199 


we may expect the sequence of song. And 
the singing itself will re-act upon the praise- 
ful life and enrich it. Wiliam Law devotes 
a whole chapter to the influence of singing 
psalms in the devotional life. It brightens 
the heart; it purifies the spirit. It opens 
heaven and carries the heart near to it. 


** Sometimes a light surprises 
The Christian while he sings.” 


When we have got this type of Christian 
praiseful, rejoicing, singing Christians, we 
shall have some splendid service rendered 
to our Lord. Says Thomas Carlyle :— 
“* Give me the man who sings at his work ; 
he will do more, he will do it better, he 
will persevere longer.” The ministries of 
heaven are accomplished to the accom- 
paniment of a song, “And they sang a 
new song.” 





A CHRISTIAN WALK 


Text: “ Walk in love.”—Eph. 5: 2. 
Text: “ Walk as children of light.’ —Eph. 5: Y. 
Text: “ Look carefully how ye walk.” —Eph. 5 : 15. 


THERE are characteristic walks. We may 
sometimes tell the occupation of a man 
from his gait. ‘There is the firm and 
springy and masculine step of the soldier. 
There is the somewhat ungainly and yet 
alluring walk of the sailor. There is the 
stately walk of the born prince. We are 
told that there was a certain imperial 
dignity about the carriage of the peasant 
Robert Burns as he moved in Scotland’s 
fairest halls. And concerning the Christian, 
there is in his spiritual habits a character- 
istic manner of going.» There is a peculiar 
carriage and behaviour. As he moves down 
the streets of time there are certain marks 
which distinguish him from the ordinary 
crowd. And in the words which I have taken 


for exposition the Apostle names to us some 
201 


202 Tharsting for the Springs 


of these characteristics” He is distinguished 
by love and light and circumspection.“There 
is about him a certain disposition of heart, 
a certain sunny purity of love, and a 
certain scrupulous and vigilant exactness. 

“Walk in love.” Now let us see the 
setting of this. A piece of counsel is often 
burdensome and depressing, because we 
ignore its context. If I confine myself 
merely to the Apostle’s words which I 
have just quoted, it seems as though he 
were laying upon me the duty of creating 
a fountain, and that a fountain of love; 
and the counsel depresses and disheartens 
me. Is it within my power to be a creator 
_/f love? Is it within my province to set 
* fountains in motion? One thing in God’s 
word is perfectly clear, we are never called 
upon to create fountains. Our duty is to 
direct the flow of rivers. “ All my springs 
are in Thee.” Therefore, if I am in any 
way discouraged by the counsel of the text, 
let me look into the context if perchance 
I may behold the springs. What is it that 
precedes my text? This welcome word, 


A Christian Walk 203 


“As beloved children.” What is it that 
precedes my text? “As Christ also loved 
you.” The very setting of the words is 
suggestive of an evangel; the river is born 
out of these two springs. I am able to 
walk in love because I am myself beloved. 

| We are everyone beset and engirt with 
Divine affectional energy. We too often 
Riles love as a sentiment, and by senti- 
ment we mean something more ineffective 
than the coloured vapour of the rainbow. 
It is because we so frequently interpret 
love as an idle and passive feeling that we 
so utterly misconceive the grandeur of the 
gospel of love. Real love is an energy, as 
individual in its characteristics as electricity 
or air. It is a power as real in the spiritual 
realm as any of the forces which move in 
the realm of matter. “God loves me.” 
That means infinitely more than that God 
is well disposed toward me. It far exceeds 
the hospitality of an open door. It is an 
outgoing friendly affectionate force. It is ~> 
a veritable ally moving round about my / 
life, hungering to serve me. 


204 Thirsting for the Springs 


Now it is part of our wonderful endow- 
ment that we can resist and repel this 
Divine energy of love. I go out in the 
early morning when the air is sweet and 
soft and clear, and is working in manifold 
_ ways the miracle of resurrection. It steals 
from the open country right up to my house 
door, yet I can repel it. I can close every 
window and every crevice, and deny the 
gracious minister right of entrance. I may 
be enswathed in electrical force, it may be 
all about me, yet, if I immure myself in a 
glass sphere, I can resist its approaches. 
All I need to do is to erect a non-conductor, 
and the friendly visitor is paralysed. And 
when that heavenly air which we call the 
love of God moves round about my life 
intent on a reviving ministry, I can shut it 
from my life, I can erect a non-conductor. 
I can rear a prejudice. I can establish 
the barrier of some selfish purpose. I can 
set up the obstinacy of a stubborn will. 
I can keep the heavenly visitor at the door. 
** Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” 
Or I can let in the heavenly force, as I can 


A Christian Walk 205 


open the window to let in the morning air. 
How can [I let in the love of God? Chiefly 
by thinking about it. To give thought is 
to offer hospitality. We entertain the 
thing that we most contemplate. That 
thing comes nearest to us which is most 
prominent in our minds. If I think about 
the Lord, and about the love of the Lord, 
if I meditate upon it as it is seen in life 
and in death, it will steal into my soul as 
the sweet air steals into the open chamber. 
And then see what happens. Once admit 
the energy of the Divine love, and all things 
are subdued unto itself. If I welcome the 
love of God, God makes of me a lover. 
Energised by love, I shall walk in love. 
** As Christ loved me and gave Himself for 
me,” so shall I give myself in affectionate 
service to others. In this high sphere, 
giving is the rule of living. Because I am 
beloved I shall find myself able to love. 
Possessing the fountain I can direct the 


y Tiver. 


“Walk as children of light.” What a 
radiant vocabulary is elicited even when 


wu 
f 


206 Thirsting for the Springs 


we pronounce this beautiful figure! It 
calls round about it quite a company of 
shining ones; words, such as cheery, 
bright, sunny, inspiring optimism! We 


,sometimes say of a little childy»* She is 
/ the sunshine of the house,”, and what that 
“Tittle child is in the home, Christians are 


to be in the long, monotonous streets of 
the world, We are to be children of light. 
First of all, is not the figure suggestive of 
warmth 7 2 We are to be like hearth fires. 
There are so many things to make the 
world cold. Bereavement makes one very 
cold. If death comes into our house, even 
in the middle of June, the house becomes 
a very clammy place. Disappointment is 
also very chilling, and all round about us 
there are souls that are just frozen in the 
bonds of calamity, and broken ambition 
and bereavement. I notice that some of 
the municipal authorities in Canada, during 
the recent extraordinary severity of the 
weather, made great fires in the streets, 
that the poor might gather around them 
and have the frost taken out of their 


" A Christian Walk 207 


paralysed limbs. And is not that a figure 
of what happened in the olden days, when 
the Christ of God moved amid the streets 
of man? Was not He like a great hearth- 
fire, round which the consciously - cold 
gathered for cheer and warmth? “Then 
came all the publicans and sinners for to 
hear Him.” How beautiful it is that they 
drew near to the heavenly flame and felt 
revived! And is not this the promise that 
is made to Christians, that they too, like 
their Master, shall be “burning lights”? 
“He shall baptize you with fire.” The 
presence of that flame is a splendid argu- 
ment for our religion. Men may mistake 
our logic and may ignore our doctrine, but 
they will be wooed by our fire. But then 
the figure is not only suggestive of warmth, 
it is suggestive of guidance. Men need our 
Tight in their perplexities and bewilder- 
ments. And don’t let us think that we 
need to be “stars” in order to shine. 
It was by the ministry of a candle that 
the woman recovered her lost piece of silver. 
Perhaps it is the candle people, the one or 


= * 


208 Thirsting for the Springs 


two talent people, who are of most service 
in this sphere. It is possible to find a 
diamond by the aid of a match. I think 
it is likely that when all things are reckoned 
up, and the wonderful labours of life are 
» all made known, it will be found that 
the candle-folk have discharged a wonder- 
ful ministry in guiding poor, sick, lost 
pilgrims to the Saviour’s feet. We are 
_ called upon to be “burning and shining 
lights,” “ children of light.” 

“* Look carefully how ye walk.” Literally 
interpreted, the Apostle seems to say, 
“Walk with scrupulous exactness, never 
relax your vigilance, be careful where 
you put your feet, watch the next step.” 


‘Keep Thou my feet ; I do not ask to see 
The distant scene; one step enough for me.” 


Now it is usually little things that cause 
us to stumble. I do not fall over a beer 
barrel, but I slip over a piece of orange 
peel. I have never stumbled over a bale 
of cotton, but if one flag on the pavement 
projects a third of an inch, I may be brought 


a 


A Christian Walk 209 


to grief. I can avoid the bigger thing; I 
am careless about the trifles. The little 
things cause me to stumble. “ Look care- 
fully how ye walk.’ Recollect the import- 
ance of details. Life is made up of steps 
and incidents and trifles. “He that is 
faithful in that which is least is faithful 
also in much.” 

Let me add one concluding word. One 
way to attain unto a fine walk is to hold 
company with those that possess it. I 
think I have noticed when a soldier lad 
has come home, and he is met by one or 
two of his old comrades, that as they walk 
down the streets together, with the hero in 
the middle, the two mates unconsciously 
seek to throw off their slouch, and attempt 
the step and the dignity of their much- 
drilled and well-disciplined friend. We, 
too, shall strive after a finer carriage if we 
hold company with our Lord. “Oh, for 
a closer walk with God!” 





A SONG IN THE NIGHT 
Text: “ Inthe Lord put I my trust.”—Psalm 11:1 


I, A SONG IN THE NIGHT. 
“Iw the Lord put I my trust.” That is a 
jubilant bird-note, but the bird is singing, 
not on some fair dewy spring morning, 
but in a cloudy heaven, and in the very 
midst of a destructive tempest. A little 
while ago I listened to a concert of 
mingled thunder and bird-song. Between 
the crashing peals of thunder, I heard 
the clear thrilling note of the lark. The 
melody seemed to come out of the very 
heart of the tempest. The environment 
of this Psalm is stormy. The sun is down. 
The stars are hid. The waters are out. 
The roads are broken up, and in the very 
midst of the darkness and desolation one 
hears the triumphant cry of the Psalmist, 
“In the Lord put I my trust.” The 
singer is a soul in difficulty. He is the 
victim of relentless antagonists. He is 
21 


212 Thirsting for the Springs 


pursued by implacable foes. The fight 
would appear to be going against him. 
The enemies are overwhelming, and, just 
at this point of seeming defeat and imminent 
disaster, there emerges this note of joyful 
confidence in God. “In the Lord put 
I my trust.” It is a song in the night. 


Il. INADEQUATE RESOURCES. 

“* How say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird 
to your mountain?” The Psalmist now 
hears the voices of counsellors. They are 
urging him to get away from the exposed 
plains to the strongholds. They beseech 
him to fly to the mountains, and to seek 
security from his foes in the heights. Away 
in the mountain fastnesses he will be 
able to hide in perfect security, but to 
the Psalmist the suggested defences are 
inadequate. The enemy can reach him 
there. Evil has a long-range ministry. 
He will be discovered in his hiding place, 
and will be wounded and defeated even 
in the heights, “For lo, the wicked bend 
their bow; they make ready their arrow 


A Song in the Night 213 


upon the string, that they may shoot in 
darkness at the upright in heart.” Against 
these imperfect defences the Psalmist pro- 
claims his own confident boast, “In the 
Lord put I my trust.” 

Have we no similarly inadequate re- 
sources which are suggested to the driven 
soul to-day? The soul is assailed by 
fierce temptations. It becomes possessed 
by the feverishness of ambition. It lies 
exposed to the contagion of the leprosy 
of avarice. It is the target of the fiery 
darts of lust. Where may the soul find 
security ? In what defence may a man 
rest in the strength of peaceful security ? 
What protective ramparts are offered to 
the soul? The world is not slow to re- 
commend its own fastnesses, its secure 
heights, its mountain air. I do not despise 
them, I am grateful for any defensive 
strength which they may offer to me, 
but, at the best, their resources are all 
insufficient. In the best of earth’s health 
resorts one can catch disease. Even the 
most conspicuously healthy place has its 


214 Thirsting for the Springs 


published death-rate. There are little 
graveyards even among the Alps. And 
these mountain heights, which are recom- 
mended for the security of men who are 
persecuted by temptations, and exposed 
to the assaults of the devil, leave the soul 
vulnerable at a thousand points. 

Look at two or three of these sug- 
gested refuges. “Flee as a bird to your 
mountain.” “Take up literature!” No 
one can be more grateful than I for the 
magnificent defences offered by elevated 
literature. A healthy book is a strong 
defence. But if a man immerse himself 
in the very best literature, he is not 
necessarily out of the reach of the devil. 
* Lo, the wicked bend their bow.” There 
are interstices in the most refined and 
finely-woven literature through which the 
forces of evil can pour like an atmospheric 
flood. 

“Flee as a bird to your mountain.” 
“Take up music!” How grateful we are 
for the gracious ministry of music. It 
gives expression to moods of the soul 


A Song in the Night 215 


for which speech is altogether too coarse 
and imperfect a medium. Music refines 
the emotions, and helps to lighten and 
purify the desires. But are its defences 
adequate? Is the musician out of the 
range of the evil one? I should say 
that in this health-resort the death-rate 
is abnormally high. The jealousies and 
strifes, and petty envies of musicians, 
have become a common-place. The love 
of high-class music frequently cohabits 
with the lack of moral principle, fostering 
a dangerous sensationalism, which is often 
used in shameless lust. 

“Flee as a bird to your mountain.” 
“Take up science or art!” Here again 
one is grateful for the invigorating ministry. 
It is a rare benediction to be led into the 
wonder and beauty of nature, into the 
unveiling of her features, and the disclosure 
of her soul. I know of nothing more 
helpful, outside the realms of actual fellow- 
ship with Christ, than to go out into 
the country, and engage oneself with the 
unfolding marvels of the natural world. 


216 Thirsting for the Springs © 


Such a habit affords a grand shield for 
the soul, but the armour is not complete. 
“The wicked can bend the bow,” and 
discover the soul through many an exposed 
and unprotected place. The esthetic can- 
not subdue the immoral, nor is science a 
safe-cuard against irreverence and impurity. 
All these suggested strongholds are inade- 
quate. Evil can invade these fastnesses. 
The air that blows on these heights is a 
breeder of the microbe of moral disease. 
““ How say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird 
to your mountain?” “In the Lord put 
I my trust.” 


Ill. THE ALL-SUFFICIENT SECURITY. 

Upon what then shall the driven soul 
depend? “Jn the Lord put I my trust.” 
In Him are the sure foundations of a 
mighty stronghold. In Him man’s security 
is complete. In the remainder of the 
Psalm the Psalmist enumerates some of 
the foundations upon which his joyful 
confidence is built. I do not wonder that 
the inspection is accomplished to the 


A Song in the Night 217 


accompaniment of a song. What are some 
of the stones of the grand foundation ? 

The Lord’s Immanence.—“ The Lord is 
in His Holy Temple.” That is the begin- 
ning of his confidence. Our God is not 
an absentee. “The Tabernacle of God 
is with man.” God is very near. We can 
get at Him, and He can get at us; we can 
speak to Him, and He will speak to us. 

The Lord's Sovereignty. The Lord’s 
throne is in the Heaven.” We are not 
under the dominion of chance. Forces 
are not moving in blindness towards un- 
known destinies. The Lord governs the 
coming and going of the night. The clouds 
accomplish His bidding. He rides upon 
the storm. “God is in His heaven.” 
That is the second great note in the 
Psalmist’s faith. 

The Lord’s Discernments.—“ His eyes 
behold, His eyelids try.” Our God is a 
close observer. He is familiar with every- 
*thing that is happening. Nothing gets 
the start of Him. He sees things in their 
germ. He sees conduct when it is only 


218 Thirsting for the Springs 


yet a wish. He sees the finished work 
when it is only yet a stammering prayer. 
Our Lord sees. All the secret movements 
of vice and virtue are known to Him. 
I need have no wonder as to whether 
He knows the forces that surround me. 
He knows them all—their measure, their 
weight, and the power of my endurance. 
This is another element in the Psalmist’s 
boast. 

The Lord’s Repulsions.—“ The wicked, 
and him that loveth violence, His soul 
hateth.” The Lord is not passive, He 
does not stand aloof, and allow things to 
go by default. He hateth sin. Divine 
hatred means Divine antagonism. To know 
that the evil temptation that besets me 
has God for its antagonist strengthens 
the nerve and invigorates the will. Evil 
has God for its antagonist, and for its 
overthrow the Psalmist waits with fruitful 
certainty. 

The Lord’s Purposes—The wicked haste 
towards the night. “Upon the wicked 
He shall rain snares and fire of brimstone, 


A Song in the Night 219 


and horrible tempest.” I do not know 
the full import of these words, but I can 
catch their drift. The wicked are mov- 
ing towards destruction! The righteous 
march towards the dawn! “The upright 
shall behold His face.” They are moving 
on through tribulation and pain to a quiet 
and radiant morning. This is the design 
of God, and in this design the Psalmist 
builds his faith. Such are the foundations 
of the Psalmist’s security. He will not 
be overwhelmed. God is with him. The 
end of all things shall be to him, and to 
all the faithful, an unspeakably glorious 
dawn. 





THE ROOTS OF THE BLESSED 
LIFE 


Text: Psalm 34: 11-14. 


** Wuat man is he that desireth life and 
loveth many days that he may see good?” 
That is an old-world statement of a per- 
sistent problem, but I want to read it 
without the Old Testament limitations. 
We have the same problem, but we perhaps 
give it a slightly different expression. 
“What man is he that desireth life?” 
Who wants to truly live, to be thoroughly 
alive, to be lifted above the plain of 
mere existence, and placed in conditions 
of amazing vitality and fertility? “ And 
loveth many days?” What man is he that 
desireth a large life, a life of spacious 
activities, of grand persistence and con- 
tinuity ? “ That he may see good.” What 
man is he that desireth a life that will 
extract the real “good” out of things, 
that will gather the honey in the hidden 
221 


222 Thirsting for the Springs 


places, that will discover the essences 
in experiences, and get the marrow out 
of trifling and apparently inconsiderable 
events. That is the modern statement 
of the problem. Who desires to be really 
alive, abounding in vital energy, possessed 
of such fine perceptions as will explore 
all the affairs of life, and discern their 
secret treasure? In what can we find 
the life of blessedness, full, spacious, and 
refined ? 

The Psalmist’s setting of the problem 
is not without its suggestion. The state- 
ment of the spacious life of blessedness, 
extracting the secret flavours and essences 
of things, is placed in a very significant 
context. On the one hand, we have “ the 
fear of the Lord’’; on the other hand, 
“keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips 
from speaking guile.” On the one side 
is theology, on the other side is morality. 
The one expresses a certain relationship 
to God, and the other a certain relationship 
to man. And between these two, rising 
out of them, as though from them it 


The Roots of the Blessed Life 223 


received its nutriment, emerges the life 
of blessedness with its perception of the 
finest issues in creation. And therefore the 
blessed life is like a plant with a twofold 
root, one root reaching away into union 
with God, and the other root embedded 
in pure fellowship with man. Let us look 
at the two roots. 


1. “The fear of the Lord.” Now fear 
is not fearfulness. In seeking an inter- 
pretation of the word, we must put aside 
all ideas of terror, of trembling servitude, 
of cringing servility. If the content in- 
cluded any element of terror, the spiritual 
life would be a doleful bondage; but 
there are strange conjunctions in the Word 
of God which make this interpretation 
impossible. What an amazing companion- 
ship is to be found in these words :— 
“Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice! ” 
The significance of the passage is just this, 
that whatever the fear of the Lord may 
be, it is consistent with the presence 
of a ceaseless joy. Fear is a disposition 


224 Thirsting for the Springs 


which can lodge in the same heart with 
delight. The same suggestion is conveyed 
to us by many passages in the writings 
of the Apostle Paul. In the Epistle to 
the Philippians, he emphasises and re- 
emphasises the duty of rejoicing, and yet 
in the same Epistle he enjoins his readers 
to “work out their salvation with fear 
and trembling.” Fear, therefore, is not 
synonymous with terror, for terror is never 
the companion of joy. 

What, then, can be the inner suggestion 
of the phrase, “the fear of the Lord!” 
Let us make an inquest into the word. 
The primary significance of the term is 
alied to our conception of reverence. 
Now reverence implies perception; per- 
ception further implies sensitiveness, and 
in this last word I think we touch 
the essential content of the biblical word 
“fear.” ‘The fear of the Lord” is sen- 
sitiveness towards the Lord. It is the 
opposite of hardness, unfeelingness, be- 
numbment. The soul that fears God lies 
exposed before Him in a sensitiveness 


The Roots of the Blessed Life 225 


that discerns His most silent approach, 
The life is like a sensitive plate exposed 
to the light, and it records the faintest 
ray. Now carrying this suggestion I get 
a glimpse of the meaning of some of the 
great phrases of the word of God. “The 
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” 
Sensitiveness towards God is the beginning 
of wisdom. Sensitiveness in music is the 
beginning of musical ability; sensitive- 
ness in art is the beginning of artistic 
competence. Sensitiveness towards God is 
the beginning of expertness in the know- 
ledge and doings of God. “The fear 
of the Lord is a fountain of life.” This 
sensitiveness is spoken of as the begin- 
ning, as the fountain out of which all 
riper issues are to proceed. 

This sensitiveness towards God is one 
of the roots of the blessed life. To thrill 
to His faintest breathings, to hear the still 
small voice, to catch the first dim light 
of new revelations, to be exquisitely re- 
sponsive to the movements of the Father, 
this is the great primary rootage of a full 

P 


226 Thirsting for the Springs 


and blessed life. Happy is it for the 
expositor that he is now able to add 
that this sensitiveness towards God is a 
gift of God. “I will put my fear in 
their hearts.” By waiting upon the Lord, 
His refining ministry begins to restore 
the hardened surfaces of our life, and fills 
us again with a spirit of rare and exquisite 
discernment. 


2. We turn now to the second sugges- 
tion of the roots and sources of the blessed 
life :— 

“ Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy 
lips from speaking guile.” This appears 
to be a startling descent from the high 
plain on which we have just been moving. 
To pass from the august relationship with 
God to the controlling of one’s speech 
appears to be an amazing leap. It is 
stupendously significant that in disclosing 
the secrets of the blessed life, the Psalmist 
should immediately turn to the govern- 
ment of the tongue. Our speech is so 
often destructive of our blessedness. All 


The Roots of the Blessed Life 227 


speech has a reflex influence. Poison- 
soaked speech has first of all poisoned 
the speaker. Every word we speak recoils 
upon the speaker’s heart, and leaves its 
influence, either in grace or disfigurement. 
Therefore “keep thy tongue from evil.” 
Hold it in severe restriction. Venom, that 
passes out, also steeps in. “ And thy lips 
from speaking guile.” This is only a slight 
variation of the former word. Where 
the lips are treacherous, the heart is ill 
at ease. Where the lips are untrue, the 
heart abounds in suspicion. Where the lips 
have spoken the lie, the heart is afraid 
of exposure. How, then, can there be 
blessedness where there is dread? How 
can there be a quiet and fruitful happi- 
ness where poison is impairing the higher 
powers? “ Let nothing proceed out of your 
mouth but what is good unto edifying.” 
“* Neither was any deceit in His mouth.” 

““ Depart from eo.” Turn from it. 
Regard thyself in revolt. Rebel, and re- 
move thyself. Don’t play with uncleanness. 
Don’t touch it with thy finger. Don’t 


228 Thirsting for the Springs 


hold conversation concerning it, for there 
are some things of which it is a “shame 
even to speak.” “Depart from evil and 
do good.” The best way to effect a per- 
manent divorce from evil is to exercise 
one’s self in active good. Where there 
is no positive ministry in goodness, we 
soon relapse into sin. A positive goodness 
will make the life invincible. The devil’s 
hardest work is with the souls that are 
pre-occupied. They are so absorbed in 
their beautiful labours that they never 
see his glittering allurements, and are 
never enticed into the old destructive 
way. If we want the blessed life, full, 
safe, and abounding, we must “ depart 
from evil and do good.” 

“Seek peace and pursue tt.” Not the 
peace of quietness, not, at any rate, the 
quietness of still machinery, but perhaps 
the smoothness of machinery at work. 
We have to live together in families, in 
societies, in nations, as a race. To seek 
peace is to seek the smooth workings 
of this complicated fellowship. We are 


The Roots of the Blessed Life 229 


to labour for right adjustments, equitable 
fellowships. We are to get the gravel 
and the grit out of the fine machinery. 
We are to rid human fellowship of its envy 
and jealousy and thoughtlessness and ill- 
will. We are to labour that the com- 
panionships of God’s children may run 
smoothly without a wasting and painful 
friction. “Seek peace and pursue w.” 
We are not to give up the search because 
we are not immediately successful. We 
are not to cease to be reformers because 
the reformation is not gained in a day. 
We are not to say that society is hopeless 
because we make such little headway 
in the work of re-adjustment. We are 
to “pursue” the great aim, to chase it 
with all the eagerness of a keen hunter, 
determined not to relax the search until 
the mighty end is gained. 


Here, then, are some of the secrets 
of the blessed life—the sensitive union 
with God and a clean and self-sacrificing 
fellowship with man. With conversation 


230 Thirsting for the Springs 


sanctified, and conduct purified, and in 
our daily life the very ministry of the Cross, 
and, above all, holding high and ceaseless 
fellowship with the King, we shall know 
the preciousness and the glory of the blessed 
life. 


THE THINGS OF OTHERS 


Text: “ Look not every man on his own things, but 
every man also on the things of others.” —Phil. 2: 4. 


** Loox not every man on his own things,” 
for that would be an imprisoning egotism : 
“but every man also on the things of 
others,” for that would be a fertile and 
liberalising altruism. “Look not every 
man on his own things,” or the issue will 
be pinched and dwarfed individualism : 
“but every man also on the things of 
others,” and in the resultant collectivism, 
the individual shall find the conditions 
of his own ripest growth. 

“Look not every man on his own 
things.” It is a warning against the 
perils of self-centredness. “But every 
man also on the things of others.” It is 
an appeal for the exercise of the imagina- 
tion. Imagine the conditions which prevail 
within the circle of another man’s life. 
Get his point of view. Look at things 

231 


232 Thirsting for the Springs 


through his windows. Survey his out- 
look. Inspect his treasure. Realise his 
life. Let the implement of thy exploration 
be not only a microscope, for the close 
watching and inspection of thyself, but 
a telescope, for the discovery and inspection 
of thy brother. We are to exercise our- 
selves in the wider vision of imagination, 
in order that we may realise and understand 
the immensely complex and varied life 
which prevails in the common race. 
“Look not every man on his own things.” 
But what is the need of the wider vision ? 
The need is this, that even a man’s “ own 
things ” will not ripen beneath the entice- 
ments of a self-centred vision. No man 
can find adequate nutriment for his own 
development within the pale of his own 
life. Even genius is not self-sustaining. If 
genius is to become full-grown, it must 
borrow from other men’s resources. It 
is not difficult to name some of the wells 
from which Shakespeare fetched his water. 
It is comparatively easy to discover some 
of the larders from which Wordsworth 


The Things of Others 233 


borrowed his bread. Their genius needed 
the stimulus which they found in another 
man’s wealth. And what is true of genius 
is equally true of the more common- 
place life. Life will remain comparatively 
dormant unless it is breathed upon by 
the bracing influence of human fellowship. 
No man can lift his own powers out of 
comparative babyhood by the strength 
of his own original resources. We raise 
our plants into strength, and symmetry 
and beauty, by placing them in glass houses, 
which on every side hold fellowship with 
the spacious sky. And if the seminal 
powers of our life, the germs of virtue 
and fine capacity, are ever to become 
strong and grandly proportioned, it will 
not have to be in a narrow and walled-in 
exclusiveness, but in a brotherly com- 
munion which on every side holds spacious 
fellowship with the race. If self is to be 
realised, it must be in communion with 
brother. Self and brother will come to 
their crown in a mutual comprehension. 
Therefore, “look not every man on his 


934  Thirsting for the Springs 


own things, but every man also on the 
things of others.” 

We are called, then, to the ministry 
of imagination. Now imagination is an 
ally of sympathy. I think perhaps I 
have used a most defective figure. The 
kinship is more vital than that of alliance. 
I should prefer to say that sympathy is 
the faculty of which imagination is the 
function. It is the man of fine sympathy 
who has the rare discernment. The man 
devoid of sympathy may see a smile upon 
the face and think it sunshine. The man 
of exquisite sympathy sees. the smile, but 
knows it to be a theatrical light, and feels 
behind the smile the tears that sorrow has 
shaken into frost. Imagination without 
sympathy is only surface sight; sym- 
pathetic imagination discerns the hidden 
depths. “Look not every man on his 
own things,” but let every man, with 
sensitive, sympathetic imagination, look 
also “‘ on the things of others.” 

Here, then, is one of the principles of 
life in the Kingdom of God, the principle 


The Things of Others 235 


of sympathetic imagination, in the exercise 
of which the lives of the members are 
perfected in the strength and beauty of 
holiness. Let me take the great principle 
round to one or two of the many aspects 
of life to which it might be beneficently 
applied. 

1. Call to mind the variety of life re- 
presented in a worshipping congregation. 
We are pacing the way of the pilgrimage 
at almost every part of the road. There 
are some who are in the Slough of Despond, 
and are half inclined to give up the diffi- 
cult crusade. Others have just passed 
through the wicket-gate, and have a kind 
of chequered and trembling rejoicing in the 
Christian life. Some are climbing the Hill 
Difficulty and are troubled by the crouch- 
ing lions, which appear to bar their pro- 
gress in the distant way. Others are 
in the Palace Beautiful, resting in the sweet 
chamber called ‘‘ Peace,” whose window 
is toward the sun-rising! Some are de- 
scending the Valley of Humiliation, and are 
finding that the descent is more irksome 


236 Tharsting for the Springs 


and trying than the difficult climb. Others 
are in fierce and deadly combat with 
Apollyon, encountering some monstrous 
temptation, which overwhelmingly threatens 
their life. Some are walking through 
Vanity Fair, tempted by the glare and 
glitter of worldly wares, and tried by 
the seducting offers of fading garlands 
and tinselled crowns. And others are 
in the land of Beulah, where the birds sing, 
and where the sun shines night and day! 
Some are just at the beginning of the 
pilgrimage, and all the perils lie before 
them. Others are just on the brink of 
the narrow river, and all their dangers 
lie behind. How varied and many- 
coloured are our lives! And. we come 
together to worship—to pray and to 
praise, and to engage in holy fellowship. 
What do we need? The ardent exercise 
of the imagination, the ministry of a 
fervent spiritual sympathy. The man 
climbing the steep hill must have spiritual 
sympathy with those in the sunny land of 
Beulah ; and those in the song-filled land 
of Beulah must have spiritual sympathy 


The Things of Others 237 


with those who are crossing the lone and 
desolate plains which are haunted by 
Apollyon. The man who is in the Slough 
of Despond must sympathetically recall 
the one who stands on the hill called 
“Clear,” with its wide and lovely pros- 
pects, stretching right away to the celestial 
gates ; and those on the hill called “ Clear ” 
must hold spiritual sympathy with those 
toiling through the deep, dark places of 
despondency and despair. “Look not 
every man on his own things, but every 
man also on the things of others.” 

That is the very genius and minisiry 
of Christian communion. I announce a 
hymn, and it leads us through valleys of 
shadow and desolation. 


** Speak Lord, and bid celestial peace 
Relieve my aching heart ! 
Oh, smile, and bid my sorrows cease, 
And all the gloom depart.” 


But you have no ache and no sorrows 
and no gloom! How can you sing it? 
Aye, but hidden here and there in the 
throng are souls that are just bowed 


238  Thirsting for the Springs 


and crushed in ache and sorrow and 
gloom, and for them the prayer is a closely 
appropriate cry. You must exercise your 
spiritual sympathy, live in your fellows, 
and sing it for them! “Look not every 
man on his own things, but every man 
also on the things of others.” 

I announce another hymn, and it leads 
us through sunlit meadows and by softly 
flowing streams. 


“* My heart is resting, oh, my God, 
My heart is in Thy care, 
I hear the voice of joy and health. 
Resounding everywhere.” 


But you don’t hear the voice of joy and 
health resounding everywhere! You feel 
the pressure of sickness and the chill of 
the shadow! How can you singit? Aye, 
but there are here and there in the con- 
gregation souls who are just possessed by 
the sense of the flowing energies of the 
Holy God; and you must exercise your 
spiritual sympathy, and sing it for them! 
‘Look not every man on his own things.” 

Such is the hopefulness of public com- 


The Things of Others 239 


munion when we minister to one another 
in sanctified sympathy. It will not im- 
poverish the man who has reached the 
sunny height to think sympathetically of 
the man who is toiling at the shadow- 
haunted base, and it will not add to the 
burden of the man who is toiling through 
the cloud to join sympathetically in the 
jubilant hymn of the man who has reached 
the light. We are all the richer for a 
wider comprehension. When we visit one 
another’s hearts in sympathetic ministry 
we help one another, and we enrich our- 
selves. The bee that serves the flowers 
by its visits brings wealth to its own 
hive. “Look not every man on his own 
things.” 

2. Let me take the principle round to 
another aspect of the common life. Here 
are a number of so-called sects, ecclesiastical 
fellow-ships, separated from one another 
by barriers and divisions. Each has its 
own peculiar treasure; each has its own 
peculiar defect. How shall each develop 
its own worthiest life to finest maturity ? 
By the exercise of a sympathetic imagina- 


240 Thirsting for the Springs 


tion, holding fellowship with the others. 
“Look not every sect on its own things, 
but every sect also on the things of 
others.” There is nothing so cramping 
and belittling as a severe and walled-in sec- 
tarianism. Sectarianism, with no windows 
opening out into wider fellowships, can pro- 
duce nothing higher than spiritual dwarfs. 
Whenever I wish to gain an instance of 
enlightened sectarianism, I turn to the 
third chapter of the Gospel of St John. 
** There was a man of the Pharisees, named 
Nicodemus.” A sectarian, indeed! “ The 
same came to Jesus—” Sectarianism, 
then, with an open window; sectarianism 
with a healthy inquisitiveness; sectari- 
anism with a hunger for light! “The 
same came to Jesus!”  Sectarianism in 
fellowship, seeking treasure beyond itself! 
“There was a man of the Congrega- 


tionalists, named ——-; the same came 
to a Methodist!” ‘There was a man 
of the Methodists, named ——; the 


same came to an Episcopalian.” ‘“‘ There 
was a man of the Quakers, named 
; the same came to a Catholic. 





The Things of Others 241 


“There was a man of the Episcopalians, 
named ———-; the same came to the 
Salvation Army.” “ Look not every man 
on his own things, but every man also 
on the things of others.” Should we be 
the losers by this sympathetic imagination ? 
If we sought to realise one another’s 
positions, to gain one another’s point 
of view, to understand one another’s 
outlook, and to discover one another’s 
purpose and aim, should we be the poorer 
for the fellowship? If among all the denomi- 
nations we sought for the largest common 
denominator, would not the explanation be 
productive of great spiritual wealth ? 

Here is a man who is best aided in his 
devotional life by the ministry of ex- 
temporary prayer. Its spontaneity, its in- 
formality, its elasticity provide the most 
welcome vehicle for the expression of his 
own petitions. Well, now, would it not 
be well for this man to try to sympathe- 
tically imagine a temperament of quite 
another type, a temperament to which an 
extemporary prayer is a “rock of offence 

Q 


242 Thirsting for the Springs 


and a stone of stumbling,” a tempera- 
ment which requires the calm, unembar- 
rassed procession of prepared speech, and 
which needs to know, for its own fruitful 
devotion, the entire line and tendency 
of the supplicating thought? I say, 
would it not be well for men of such 
different temperaments to “look not only 
on their own things, but also on the things 
of others,” that in their larger fellowship 
and understanding each might attain unto 
a richer and more spacious life? If the 
Ritualist would sympathetically seek to 
realise the Quaker, and the Quaker the 
Ritualist, I can foresee nothing but wealthy 
issues from such an exercise. I am there- 
fore pleading for ecclesiastical sympathies. 
I am pleading that a man’s eyes should 
travel beyond his own sect. “ Other sheep 
I have which are not of this fold.” It 
is in that other fold that I want my 
imagination to be at work, that out of 
the more spacious outlook there may 
arise a more brotherly co-operation in 
the common work of saving the race. 


A TESTIMONY MEETING 


Text: “O magnify the Lord with me, and let us 
exalt His name together. I sought the Lord, and He 
heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. They 
looked unto Him, and were lightened; and their faces 
were not ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord 
heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. The 
angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear 
Him, and delivereth them.” —Psalm 34: 3-7. 


““O macniry the Lord with me, and let 
us exalt His name together.” It is a call 
to social worship. It is the cry of a soul 
possessed by the spirit of praise, and 
yearning to have fellowship with the 
thanksgiving of others. “God’s praises 
sound best in concert.” The praise that 
lifts its voice in solitude is beautiful, but it 
is far more beautiful when heard in com- 
munion with the praise of one’s fellows. 
The violin gains something from an 
accompaniment. Each instrument in the 
orchestra is enriched by the co-operation 


of the others. Each member in a chorus 
Q* 25 


244 Thirsting for the Springs 


has his discernment sharpened, and his 
zeal intensified by the remaining members. 
So it is in the orchestra of praise. My 
own thanksgiving is quickened and enriched 
when I join it to the praises of others. 
My own note is gladdened. My eagerness 
is inflamed. 
* Come let us join our cheerful songs, 
With angels round the throne ; 


Ten thousand thousand are their tongues, 
But all their joys are one.” 


In response to this appeal for social 
worship, the text appears to suggest that 
a number of thankful souls gathered 
together, and, each contributing his own 
testimony of the exceeding graciousness 
of God, they joined in an outburst of 
united and jubilant praise. They formed 
a kind of fellowship meeting for testi- 
mony and adoration. Here is one of the 
testimonies: “I sought the Lord, and 
He heard me, and delivered me from 
all my fears.” And here is the gladsome 
confession of quite a numerous com- 


A Testimony Meeting 245 


pany. “They looked unto Him and 
were lightened, and their faces were not 
ashamed.” And here, again, is the witness 
of an inspired and grateful soul: ‘“ This 
poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, 
and saved him out of all his troubles.” 
Is it any wonder that, after testimonies 
such as these, there should arise a spon- 
taneous outburst of confident and delight- 
ful thanksgiving? “The angel of the 
Lord encampeth round about them that 
fear Him, and delivereth them.” Let us 
listen a little more heedfully to the in- 
dividual testimonies. 

“I sought the Lord and He heard me, 
and delivered me from all my fears.”” What 
had been this man’s burden? It was 
the burden of “fears.” He was easily 
panic-stricken. He moved in continual 
trembling. He was afraid of yesterday. 
He dared not think of the morrow. He 
shrank from the conception of death. 
He was surrounded by terrors. He took 
no step in confidence, afraid that at each 
step the ground might open beneath his 


246 Thirsting for the Springs 


feet. He was John Bunyan’s “Mr 
Fearing.” He was “always afraid that 
he should come short of whither he had 
a desire to go.” “ Everything frightened 
him that he heard anybody speak of, 
that had but the least appearance of 
opposition in it.” When he came to the 
Slough of Despond he “lay moaning for 
a month together.” And “when he was 
over, he would scarce believe it.” He 
was burdened with “ fears.” I am afraid 
that examples of the type would not be 
difficult to find. There are many people 
who are not afflicted by calamity, but who 
are greatly burdened by the fear of it. 
There are many whose sky is full of light, 
but who are afraid of the coming night. 
This would appear to have been the plight 
of the man to whose confession we are 
now listening. 

What did he make his resource? “J 
sought the Lord.” The seeking was a real 
business. Into the inquisition he put his 
whole soul. It was no languid aspiration, 
no lukewarm search. He “set himself 


A Testimony Meeting 247 


to seek God.” I like that Old Testament 
phrase. There is an air of business-like 
intensity about it; it throbs with definite 
purpose and decided resolve. There is 
the promise of ultimate triumph in the 
initial movement. Of this man we shall 
be able to say, “ He that seeketh, findeth.” 

And what was the issue of the search ? 
“He heard me.” The somewhat vague 
term “heard” scarcely expresses the 
content of the Psalmist’s mind. The 
significance of the term is more than 
hearing. It implies heeding and respond- 
ing. Man’s “seeking” was responded to 
by a sympathetic movement on the part 
of God. “ And delivered me from all my 
jears.” “He delivered me.” That is a 
full-coloured and full-blooded word, abound- 
ing in strength and vitality. It suggests 
the act of rescuing something out of a 
beast’s mouth. As though my “fears” 
were a pack of wild beasts, and I repeatedly 
find myself in their jaws. I am daily 
devoured. My peace is consumed. It is 
from spiritual hayoc of this kind that 


248 Thirsting for the Springs 


our Lord delivers us. “I will deliver 
my flock from their mouth.” The rescue 
is not partial. The relief is by no means 
incomplete. The freedom is absolute. 
“He delivered me from all my fears.” 
As an old Puritan commentator put it, 
““God sweeps the field, slays the enemies, 
and even buries their bones.” 

Let us listen to the second of these grate- 
ful testimonies. “ They looked unto Him 
and were lightened, and their faces were not 
ashamed.” 'The burden which this little 
company had carried is not mentioned. 
But I think it is quite easy to infer it from 
their confession. The gracious answer of 
God brought a benediction of light. They 
were “lightened.” Then before they must 
have been darkened. There was no light 
in their faces. They were cheerless and 
depressed. They were cast down and 
melancholic, and inclined to the bondage 
of despair. They were “losing heart.” And 
what was their resource? “They looked 
unto Him.” They gazed intently upon 
God. It was no snatch look, no hurried 


A Testimony Meeting 249 


glances, no passing nod of recognition. It 
was a fixed and eager gaze. We may 
apprehend the intensity of the look by 
calling to mind a strange phrase used by 
the Prophet Isaiah. “ Look, ye blind, that 
ye may see.” The blind are called upon to 
exert the muscles of their darkened eyes, 
to stretch them as though they would see ; 
and in the strenuous working they should 
obtain their sight. That is the figure 
which suggests the kind of “looking” 
which is fruitful in spiritual vision. They 
fixed their thought upon God; they held 
it there, even though the effort were 
productive of an aching pain. And what 
was the outcome of their gaze? They 
“were lightened.” They were made to 
sparkle. They were brightened up, lit 
up, made cheerful. “ Now are ye light 
in the Lord.” Depression gave way to 
buoyancy. Melancholy yielded to cheer- 
fulness. They became the optimists. 
One has sometimes seen the windows 
of a little cottage which faces the sun, 
shine like burnished gold, as they caught 


250 Thirsting for the Springs 


the glory of the resplendent orb. Every 
window pane was “ lightened” as it con- 
fronted the radiant glory. And so with 
depressed souls and their Maker. If we 
bring ourselves face to face with the 
Sun of Righteousness, and remain in the 
fruitful attitude, contemplating “as in a 
mirror the glory of the Lord,” we shall 
be “transformed into the same image 
from glory to glory.” And “their faces 
were not ashamed.” There was the light 
of conquerors in their eyes. The cloud of 
anticipated defeat was dispersed. “ Their 
faces were covered with joy, but not 
with blushes.” They were “children of 
the light.” 

Let us now turn to the third of these 
witnesses, and hear his thankful confession. 
“This poor man cried, and the Lord heard 
him, and saved him out of all his troubles.” 
And what had been this man’s peculiar 
burden? It is described under the spacious 
word “troubles.” It is possible, perhaps, 
to give a little more definiteness to its 
content. It is literally suggestive of 


A Testimony Meeting 251 


“tightness.” He had been in a “ tight 
corner,” “a tight place.” He hadn't 
known how to turn; he was shut in, 
in straits and imprisonment. We are not 
told what particular shape the affliction 
had taken. It is sufficient to us to know 
that the man was at bay, and could discover 
no means of escape. In his straits he 
“cried unto the Lord.” It was a short, 
sharp, urgent prayer. There is a phrase 
in one of Rutherford’s letters which it 
may be useful to quote just here. “ Fervour 
is a heavenly ingredient in prayer; an 
arrow drawn with full strength hath a 
speedier issue; therefore the prayers of 
saints are expressed by crying in Scripture.” 
This was the kind of arrow-prayer that 
sprang from the tense feelings of this 
imprisoned soul. Again we have the 
confession made by an earlier witness. 
“The Lord heard him,” paid heed to him, 
and began the ministry of gracious response. 
“He saved him out of all his troubles.” 
He opened a way out of the tight place. 
He led him out of straits into freedom. 


252 Thirsting for the Springs 


He gave him a sense of space. “Thou 
hast brought my feet into a large place.” 

It is little wonder that testimonies like 
these, leaping out of grateful hearts, should 
find their issue in a song, which is both 
Gospel and praise! “The angel of the 
Lord encampeth round about them that 
fear Him.” The witnesses are generalis- 
ing their own experiences, and proclaiming 
a Gospel for all men. The Lord of all is 
willing to become the life-guard of each. 
He will pitch His tents round about us, 
and within those gracious defences our 
security will become complete. “As the 
mountains are round about Jerusalem, 
so the Lord is round about His people.” 
Behind those glorious ramparts the man 
of “ fears’ may find deliverance, the man 
of depression may find “ lightening,” and 
the man of troubles may discover a wealthy 
freedom. 











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